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THE MORNING STAR 



THE MORNING STAR 



A POEM 



BY 



/ 



EDWARD RYDER 



5^ 




NEW YORK 
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

182 Fifth Avenue 
1878 






Copyright by 
EDWARD RYDER 

187S 



THE MORNING STAR 



AS a Pomologist his Nursery 
Of thorny seedlings with judicious eye 
Surveys, electing one whereon to graft 
Some choice Exotic, strait, with knife or saw, 
Close to the ground, severs the polished stem 
And lays the native crown with all its buds 
To wither like life's morning dreams, anon 
Splits the complaining stump and there inserts 
A Scion, severed from its native tree 
And clime, but holding fast its proper life, 
Closes" with balm the wounds, and bids the root 
Regenerate, so from destruction saved, 
Transmute its spirituous energies to feed 
The renovating germ, till, in due time. 
In steadfast wedlock knit, the double tree, 
Spreading new leaf and bloom, unto the hand 



6 THE MORNING STAR. 

Of its approving lord the golden fruit 

Tenders, most pleasing to his taste — so God 

This sour, degenerate World grafted with Christ. 

From many nations one of purest root 

He chose, (from worlds perhaps the one most fair 

And meet to be the womb of spirit life 

That should flow forth and people sister orbs,) 

Nourished it long, pruned it with patient care, 

And as hope's fairest buds began to swell, 

Smote off with Roman sword its native crown. 

And in the bleeding stock of empire set 

The Branch of Life's immortal Tree in Heaven. 

Ere long the Gospel Scion spread abroad 

In twelve coordinate limbs which, with new shoots 

Adorned, like honorable setting found 

Upon the savage nations, thus from clime 

To clime expanding and yet more to spread, 

Until the ransomed Earth, blushing at last 

With tints of Paradise, shall offer up. 

On all her friendly interlacing boughs. 

The fruit of Perfect Manhood unto God. 

All men are units of one greater Man, 

Mankind, — the sentient corpuscles that form 

The mystic body of Hiimanity. 

They are the leaves which rustle on Time's boughs, 

Flung off as generations fade. But lo ! 

Not all the leaf decays ; the better part, 

If summer were not idly spent, remains. 

In frost-defying buds whose vital store 



THE MORNING STAR. 

The industrious leaf all summer has laid by, 
From sun and earth and the soft-breathing winds, 
To form a branch of life's interior frame. 

He that has read the story of a leaf 

Has read the story of the Oak, and found 

The golden key to Wisdom's treasury. 

Strong to unlock the deep vaults of the Past 

And put his wealth to use, while, at a turn. 

It opens the vast manufactory 

In which the busy Present weaves the robes 

Of her dear child, the ever unborn Future. 

Experience is the alphabet of thought ; 

It is the telescope th.rough which we view 

E'en Heaven, and with its kindred lights converse. 

But think not, when thy glass reveals no more. 

There is Truth's bound : wait till another lens 

Be given thee, larger, more polished ; nay, 

Add lens to lens, each broader than the last, 

Till Herschel's world-creating tube shall seem 

A straw, and yet will Truth show nebulous front. 

So to Experience add Hope, nor deem 

God's works distorted if thy glass be rough. 

Nor that thy flickering taper can reveal 

Life's mysteries without that heavenly Ray, 

Which only can illuminate the page 

Of thy brief history, or that, more large. 

Of which it forms a part, the ample scroll 

Of a World's chronicles, itself too small 

For the Great Teacher's words — itself a page 



8 THE MORNING STAR. 

Of the illimitable Volume where, 
With pen and brush dipped in celestial dyes, 
Heaven's peerless Artist labors to portray 
The face of God's colossal loveliness, 
Still ever breaking in more glorious smiles. 

Good men are the Great Poet's capitals; 
Each life a line of Earth's grand Epic. Some, 
Though harsh and tuneless to man's ear, contain 
More poesy than human wit ere wrought 
Into the texture of its noblest songs. 
Some are historic, some didactic, some 
Laden with prophecy. Full many end 
With exclamations, questions, or a da*sh ; — 
Most have a comma, but some glide right on 
Against the margin as if one brief line 
Could ill-express the meaning of a life. 

What to an angel's eye is human state. 

And the soul of man that hasteth thus away ? 

A dew-drop on a trembling blade of grass, 

Or blushing petal, poised so tenderly 

That a fly's wing may brush it to the ground : 

Yet in its tiny orb all nature's wealth 

And beauty are reflected, till it seems 

Itself a universe. From Heaven's warm breast 

On the soft lap of slumbering Earth distilled. 

In dreams and wonderment the live-long night 

It muses on the various face of being. 

To honor, wealth or fame, which like the moon 



THE MORNING STAR. 

And stars adorn its heavens, brief homage pays, 

Till the ascending Sun obscures their beams, 

When, fixing on its Lord adoring eyes, 

It flames with Love, impatient to be free. 

And melting spreads its viewless wings for Heaven. 

In such a mirror, orbing gracefully 

On a fair petal of the seven-leaved rose, 

Our mother spread around her bounteous heart. 

Has heavenly Wisdom such instruction lent 

To my admiring eyes, that my fond muse, 

Somewhat by partial tenderness inspired. 

But zealous chiefly that a sighing World 

And a disheveled Church may learn the way 

To Unity and Peace, and fall in love 

With Love and Charity, would fain invoke 

The presence of these self-same wings of God, 

To brood above her and indite a song 

For Time's last days, fit for the gathering choirs 

To sing in that Broad Temple unto which 

The nations now are hastening, Her first fruits 

Thus consecrated, He whose breath alone 

Can blow our hopes to port, may deign a smile, 

And bid salvation or instruction wait 

Upon his humble messenger. So blessed. 

Two angels fair shall steal through all the land, 

And in its parlors and in its cabins cry, 

" Sweet friends, the Lord has sent to bid you come 

And make his arms your home : wash you therefore. 

And take upon you love's white, bridal robe. 



lO THE MORNING STAR. 

And crown your foreheads with the Morning Star, 
And come — lo, He is even at the door ! " 

Think you Heaven slept when the sly sorcerer charmed 

The ear of Eve and made her breast the grave 

Of Innocence and Joy, turning her forth 

From ease and affluence to till her soul 

In poverty and strife, for one good fruit 

Bringing forth man)' empty, vain conceits, 

Gendered abundantly, with travail pain. 

To fill the earth with violence and woe ? 

Why did not all the angels shout alarm, 

And break the bold seducer's magic spell ? 

Seemed it a little thing, to Him who built 

Man for eternity, that he should spend 

A day in strife, tumbling and sighs, to learn 

What foes infest the road to happiness. 

Perhaps to this rude cradle unconfined ? 

A little thing, to Love omnipotent. 

To recreate a blighted heart or world ? 

A little thing, that billions should go out 

In darkness, who might else have ever lived 

Like white-robed infants in the lap of ease ? 

Or, if these things be great, were it more sad 

That man should never rise the goodly heights 

Of moral excellence and taste the joys 

Of liberty and virtue, without which 

He were but a more intellectual ape ? — 

And still we ask, O warning angel, why 

Thou dost but whisper while temptation roars ? 



THE MORNING STAR. ^ 

Why hides the Hght of wisdom in the grave 

Before it takes the empire of the soul ? 

— So we were all dumb watch-dogs, not one barked 

When that sly thief Ambition stole at morn 

To our Elysian fold, and with his gloss 

Beguiled our happy Nymph to grasp the boughs 

Of Knowledge with such idolizing greed 

As broke great Nature's law, and on her head, 

Instead of myrtle wreaths, an iron crown 

Implanted ; so from learning's paradise 

She sadly turned away, and that more fair 

Of ruddy and elastic health, to search 

Through desolated Eden for some balm 

That could avert the fiery sword of pain. 

Which kept the ways of knowledge from her feet. 

Thus Nature's beauteous crown was laid in dust. 

Long it refused to die, by hope sustained. 

Till in its stead at length a fairer rose. 

Lifting toward Heaven its ifragrant leaf and bloom, 

In holier aspiration. O how sweet 

Is the returning Sun when midnight storms 

Have drenched the vale in tears, when drooping flowers 

Hang on their broken stalks, trying to smile 

In their humility ! As the warm beams 

Dispel the mists and change the pendant drops 

To glittering diamonds, tree, shrub, and flower 

Seem vocal with angelic melodies, 

Hymning the wonders of Redeeming Love, 

Which out of darkness still reveals new light, 



12 THE MORNING STAR. 

Life in the midst of death, — mourning transforms 
To praise, and bondage into liberty ! 

Behold the Fugitive from sin's dark thrall, 

Long by the World enslaved, whose profitless 

And rigid yoke God's hand at length has loosed, 

By judgments and afflictions manifold 

On the self-seeking and rebellious Heart 

Oft melted in the furnace of God's wrath. 

But presently as hard as penitent snow 

After the sun goes down. Fast through the depths 

Of Judgment's roaring sea, asunder cleft 

By faith's potential Rod, his narrow path 

The Pilgrim flies, pursued by Satan's hosts 

And sheltered by the intervening arm 

Of God's paternal providence, which sheds 

Light on his pathway, but upon his foes 

Disaster and confusion ! Safe at length 

On mercy's banks, like one through death escaped 

The pains and perils of this stormy clime, 

Backward he casts a happy glance to see 

The World and all its tinsel overwhelmed 

In that baptismal gulf. Exultant then, 

He sows the shore with melody and praise ! 

A needful sabbath spent, wherein he feasts 
On the unleavened bread of charity. 
With water from salvation's living wells. 
And just before him sees Heaven's open door, 
God leaves the shining gold of faith to cool 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 3 

And show what part is metal and what dross. 

Hungering for fresh delights he throws around 

Inquiring glances ; lo ! the earth is bare I 

Gone are his former pleasures, pastimes, rests, 

The hopes and aspirations which sustained 

Endeavor and the meager flesh-pots filled, 

To quickened appetite in fancy sweet ! 

Gone are those friends whose service bought at- least 

A bone to beat back famine from the heart ! 

Earth is a boundless Wilderness, and life 

A desert journey ! Then to murmuring, 

Instead of prayer, he falls, whereat the skies, 

Still merciful, rain angels' bread — the pure 

Sweet distillations of celestial truth 

And wisdom that, in gracious syllables. 

Drop from God's Word and Spirit on the heart, 

Bedewing all the morning walks of Thought. 

Again day passes and the night comes down, 

O'ershadowing mind and heart soon cold and dead 

As a browm puff-ball which the traveler's foot 

Presses, bringing forth only stifling fumes, 

Like murmuring of unbelief, till Faith 

Lays earnest hold upon the living Rock, 

Whose streams burst forth amain, and all the soul 

Water with the delights of pardoning love, 

And make the desert blossom as the rose. 

Soon before fire-crowned Sinai he stands. 
Awestruck, while God, v/ith sin-subduing voice. 



14 THE MORNING STAR. 

Proclaims the Law of Righteousness, ordained 

With trembHngs and heart-burnings on the mount 

Of Conscience, and with fiery finger traced 

In the mind's plastic tablets. But alas ! 

Before the deed of his inheritance 

Is signed, faith fails ; the weak and groveling soul 

Bows low before its Golden Calf — to works 

Of human righteousness giving the praise 

To the Invisible Glory due ! Thereat 

The skies grow lurid with the kindling flames 

Of wrath ! Destruction whets her sword ; but Grace, 

After sore chastisement and stern rebuke. 

Renews the broken Covenant and builds 

Therefor a Golden Ark, in whose defence, 

The while God's statues, like a brazen yoke, 

Are laid upon his heart to fetter sin. 

The pilgrim journeys forward, feeding still 

On manna from the bounteous skies. At length 

He wearies of God's truth and yearns to taste 

Once more of flesh and blood, — but sickens soon 

Of words, words, words, infinite, endless words 

That from the sea of mortal vanity 

Come flocking like a deluge o'er his camp, 

Making him glad once more to sit in peace. 

Feeding on truths which through the morning's freshness 

Rain silently from boughs of Paradise. 

At last before his smiling Goal he stands. 

The long-sought Land of Promise, from whose hills 

Flow milk and honey, all the bosom sweets 



THE MORNING STAR. 15 

And tender charities of life ! but lo ! 
Instead of rest and freedom, frowning walls 
Which graze the sky, and giant foes invite 
His earnest toil and valor, at whose threats 
The faithless soul melts like the morning dews 
Before the summer sun. Murmuring he turns 
From duty's thorny path, whereat the gates 
Of Inward Peace and Liberty which stood 
With outstretched arms to welcome his approach 
With no dark river threatening death between, 
Roll back and are so barred that neither wind 
Of idle promises, nor rain of tears, 
Nor courage, rising from despair too late, 
Can break the firm decree, though, adding sin 
To sin, presumptuous, rashly he essays, 
Unaided, what, with God's defence, but late 
He dared not, and soon learns not to despise 
God's mandates, but most heartily his own 
Untempered strength and wisdom. Back he flies, 
Frantic with grief and shame, like one pursued 
By bees, with anguish stung and keen remorse, 
And makes his doleful penitentiary 
Howl with his lamentations. 

Forty days 
Of contradiction, chastisement and strife 
He suffers there — as many years perhaps, 
If these suffice not — wandering 'neath the rod 
Of Moses, till the old, rebellious mind 
Is slowly worn away, and the New Man 
Again advances under leader new, — 



1 6 THE MORNING STAR, 

No more by awe of Moses' rod constrained, 

Or sense of duty urged to onerous tasks, 

But by heart-strengthening Love and Hope inspired. 

Strong in the Ark of Christ's redeeming might. 

Up to death's forming rill, as to a bed 

Of flowers, he hastes ; the nodding waves recede, 

Wide spread the gales of Liberty, and Peace 

And Joy bid hail to Canaan's blissful shore ! 

Thus from his school severe young Israel 

Stepped nimbly to his native soil a man — 

A nation among nations ! Now begins 

The long and mid-day strife for eminence ! 

Unto no meaner seat has he been called 

Than to the empire of the World : — " In thee 

Shall all the nations of the Earth be blessed." 

Go forward then conquering and to conquer ! 

Pluck all Earth's crowns and tread them 'neath thy feet, 

Till every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue 

Shall name itself The Israel of the Lord : — 

This is thy task, achieve it ere night fall. 

So forth he bounded, w4th a shout of faith 

Mightier than the combined artillery 

Of our twin hemispheres ! Down fell the walls 

Of Jericho, Oppression's towering seat. 

And onward marched the meek, exultant host. 

Encountered brief repulse, from one fell seed 

Of sin remaining, such as often mars 

The noblest victory — the secret lust 



THE MORNING STAR. 1/ 

Of gold and glory, by which men and states 
Are drawn into the devil's net ; but soon 
The stern anathemas and burning wrath 
Of an indignant People turn again 
The withering glance of God upon his foes, 
As each assailing throng, by madness urged 
To their appointed doom, in turn receive 
The meed of their iniquities, long due. 

Then the sword rested from its toil, and sweet 
But transitory Peace blessed Canaan's vales, 
'Neath whose soft shining sun sin's lingering roots 
Revived, as each new generation rose, 
Causing the Husbandman again to drive 
His yoke afield, and the rank sod o'erturn 
With harsh affliction's plowshare. Every age 
Its Winter had and Summer, Eve with Morn 
Still alternating, as new races sprang, 
And inwardly the selfsame path pursued 
Which all their fathers trod — by sin enslaved, 
By pitying Grace redeemed, as God to each 
A mediate saviour and protector gave, — 
Himself true Sovereign, on the Mercy Seat 
Of Righteousness and Truth in light enthroned. 

But when six times were past of Winter's cold 
And Summer's growing heats, the restless Tribes 
Once more conspired in general revolt. 
As when their fathers built the Golden Calf, 
" A king ! a king ! " to Samuel they cried : — 



1 8 THE MORNING STAR. 

And kings they had, to their hearts' full content, 

Who poisoned all the streams of liberty, 

And turned them from their sighing Paradise 

Into the great and terrible Wilderness 

Of civil discord, anarchy and strife, 

And Babylonish bondage — all that road 

Which the mad Church with bloody footsteps trod, 

And sackcloth garments, when she too would have 

A king — whether Tradition, Pope, or Creed — 

To bind men's free-born souls, on pain of death, 

Or excommunication, to what man, 

Daring to snatch the crown from Jesus' brow, 

Declares to be the mandate of high Heaven. 

Long, dark and bloody was the night which fell 
On outcast Israel for that dread sin ! 
In it ten princedoms of the Chosen House 
Perished, with Law and Temple now grown old, 
And, like their builders, found incompetent 
To lead God's People to enduring rest. 

But morning dawned at last ; a ruddy star, 

Ascending from the Wilderness where sank 

Judea's glory, kissed her eastern hills 

And led her flocks to Jordan, whither came 

The sacred Ark of a New Covenant, 

With gold of faith o'erlaid and crowned with gold, 

AVhereon, in higher crown, the Mercy Seat 

Of Love reposes, with the outstretched wings 

Of Righteousness and Truth twin cherubim 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 9 

That bear God's footsteps down to Earth, o'erspread. 

Behind a veil of mystic imagery, 

In a fair tabernacle from the gaze 

Of sin-blind eyes concealed, her Saviour comes ! 

And, as the Sun of a New Era dips 

His radiant feet in Jordan, the dark veil 

Which shrouds the inner Temple of the Skies, 

Hiding from man his heavenly home, divides 

A moment to the eye of Faith, and Peace 

Descending crowns the Son of God and Man ! 

Rise, captive daughter of Jerusalem, 

And kiss the Son, the High and Virgin-born, 

And take the empire of a waiting World ! 

What ! dost thou not behold Him ? Lo, He stands 

Beside thee, meek and spotless as the lamb 

Which Abel chose for a peace-offering 

To Heaven, well pleased ! more intimate with God 

In contemplative walk and ministry 

Than Enoch, or him chosen second sire 

Of human kind ! than Abraham more firm 

In faith ! a sweeter sacrifice for sin 

Than Isaac ! more than Jacob resolute 

To win God's blessing ! more magnanimous 

Than Joseph ! mightier to break the yoke 

Of sin, and lead God's People to repose, 

Than the great Lawgiver, or him named 

The saviour, valiant Joshua ! in strength 

Excelling him who rent the lion's jaws ! 

Judge more immaculate than Samuel ! 



20 THE MORNING STAR. 

Of kinglier heart and more melodious lips 
Than Judah's royal bard ! than Solomon 
With more imperial wisdom crowned ! in zeal 
Exceeding the great Tishbite and his son — 
The Law's defender and man's succorer ! 
Of prophets chief, though rapt Isaiah lift 
God's trumpet to his lips and pour vast waves 
Of transcendental music from Heaven-gate 
Down through the echoing ages ! more beloved 
Than Daniel, and the last of evening's train 
Excelling, as the Sun that star excels 
Whose golden fingers lift the latch of dawn ! 
Lo, where he stretches out his godlike arm 
And hurls the powers of darkness from their seat 
In body, soul and spirit ! None can stand 
Before him ! From his magic finger flies 
Disease, with limping sore Infirmity ! 
Devils and Death slink from his burning glance, 
Like Night and Winter from the rising Sun ! 
O'er all the desolate and moaning Land, 
Wrapped in the icy winding-sheet of sin 
And ignorance, descend the mellowing floods 
Of life and light, till, like a mountain stream 
Leaping o'er crags, or storm-tossed Galilee, 
The people wave, and clap their hands, and shout 
"Hosanna unto David's Son, our King ! " 

Alas ! what hast thou done ? Whose form is that 

Suspended on yon dripping cross ? Oh ! Oh ! 

It is thy Lord ! thy Life ! thy Light ! thy Crown ! 



THE MORNING STAR. 21 

Thy Peace ! thy Joy ! thy Immortality ! 
All, all are gone ! all dead ! all crucified ! 
O wretched mother of a murderous throng ! 
Get thee unto the wilderness ! The Grave 
Awaits thy coming ! Outcast, desolate, 
Earth has no home for thee in her breadth ! 
Afar, the eagles scent the feast of blood ! 
Near, lights funereal to the desert lead ! 

But hark ! there is a murmur in the air 

Of singing voices ! hark ! there is in earth 

A rustling ! Say, were not these bones all dry ? 

Were not these ashes dead ? What meaneth then 

This army rising as in mockery 

Of Death and Hell — clothing their giant frames 

With living flesh — sinews and blood and skin — 

And catching from the winds of heaven their breath ? 

Lo ! they go forth in twelve invincible bands 

That toss a smile at Death and through the grave 

Rush on to victory, increasing more 

The more their blood is spilt ! From every drop 

Spring up ten warriors with Truth's lightning armed, 

With shields of adamant and swords of keen 

Celestial temper ! — On ! and on ! and on ! 

Till Rome's proud empire trembles in their grasp. 

Till distant lands, with tongues of strange accent. 

Barbaric tribes and lettered capitols. 

All bend the knee, and unto Israel's King 

Confess allegiance, and join their might 

To roll his conquering chariot round the World! 



22 THE MORNING STAR. 

There came a stranger to my rude abode. 

And unto me, with flattering accent, said, 
'' / know a pathway leading from this wood 
Along a toilsome but delightful road 

To yonder mountain s gold-enameled head.'' 

Straightway I follotued him, eager to gain 

The lofty seat. Up many a flowering height 
He led me till thoughts of the shadowy plain 
Depised : — far over it the sun-kissed main 
Glimmered, and all my heart with joy ivas light. 

The path grew rugged, but I heeded not : 

It greiv precipitous, but still I rose : 
My brain grew dizzy and my blood was hot ; 
But fust above appeared a level spot. 

Which having gained, I there would take repose. 

I reached it and my lids began to drop, 

And my lax net'ves to suck at Nature's breast : 
Then said my guide, '' If you would win the top 
You must not lean upon the idler s prop, 
Butniake the paths of industry your rest." 

So, I aroused my blood-shot eyes and brain 

To further toil, and spu7'red them to the strife 
With a right-earnest will : the twinge of pain 
[ counted but the needful prize of gain j — 

To him who wins the mark, oh, what is life I _ 



THE MORNING STAR. 23 

Weary, I soiigJit a more circuitous lead 
The next bold steep to scale : but, as I stroiJe 

To mount a. jutting crag, if seemed indeed 

As if that mountain trembled like a reed 
And shook me back into my native grove. 

And then I woke and saw that I had dreamed 

A strange, wild, earnest dream of human life : 
And, as I deeply nmsed thereon, it seemed 
As if an aiigel through the twilight gleamed^ 
And beckoned me unto a nobler strife. 



II. 

FROM long discursion, as a traveler 
Standing upon the Alps far forth surveys 
The country he would visit, not on wings 
Of raptured vision borne, but stepping down 
With difficulty to the common road 
Of dusty toil and strife, my humble tale 
I now resume, intending to relate 
What happened in the inmost life of one 
Six years my junior, sister, pupil, friend 
And partner of those inmost thoughts which shrink 
From gaze of others well beloved — twin ~soul, 
More feminine, more delicately wise 
And weak and fair, from infancy the joy 
And comfort of our house, till Sorrow laid 
His cross upon her brow — our Morning Star, 
Our last born on the Earth and first in Heaven. 

We thresh the sheaf and cast away the straw 
And winnow out the chaff ; we grind the grain, 
And bolt the flour ; then take the finest part, 
And mixing it with sugar, milk and eggs, 
And spices brought from India or the South, 



THE MORNING STAR. 25 

Make a dessert to set before our friends ; 

They eat, or taste, after their solid meal, 

And go their way expecting something new 

To-morrow. Thus the poet builds his song, 

Taking from life's best growths the delicate pith, 

Enriching it with cream from his own soul. 

And sugar from the presses of his heart. 

And quick conceits out of his fertile brain, 

Spicing with native or with borrowed wit, 

He mingles them with patient industry, 

Refines them in his intellectual fires 

And sets them on your table. Daintily 

You touch or eat, and at to-morrow's feast 

Expect some new dessert of song — which he 

Who would provide, fit for the growing thought 

Of an immortal soul, — not destitute 

Of wholesome nourishment while with the warmth 

Of pure afflatus filled, — must go again 

Into the crucible, and there invoke 

The Sire of song to send his only Son, 

Immortal Truth, Imagination's lord. 

With him to walk amid the fervid flames 

Of heart and soul and intellect aglow 

With sevenfold heats of passion, — there to keep 

The even poise of judgment, cool as when 

The North Wind sports with Eve, and bring him forth 

Without the smell of anguish in his robes. 

Thus I entreat as I essay to glean 

Out of the many things which love holds dear, 

However common, what may please the taste 



26 THE MORNING STAR. 

Of those whose minds are full of pleasant things — 

Vast galleries of Art stored with all wealth 

Of genius, noblest out of noble culled, 

That can no mean companionship endure. 

Yet not alone to please do I aspire, 

But through the gate called Beautiful to lead 

The wisdom-loving soul, or the tried heart 

Whose fondling on Faith's altar must be laid, 

Into the sacred Temple where God keeps 

The substance of those shadows which do seem 

To form our human life. 

It was my lot. 
Chosen by partial confidence, to give 
Companionship and counsel to this fair 
And zealous Pilgrim, when by Heavenly Grace 
Invited to exchange the fading hopes 
Of earth for garments of celestial dye. 
And take her journey to the Promised Land, 
There to attend the court of Him whose name 
She long had honored, and his counsel held 
In chief respect. Now, more than honor due 
To Teacher wise, or Sovereign, He desired 
The conjugal devotion of a spirit 
Inflamed with love's heart-welding fires, and bound, 
For life and death, for woe and weal to One 
Than life or liberty more dear. So called. 
She looked upon her garments and perceived 
They were not meet to clothe a Prince's bride. 
Of coarse and sullen texture they appeared. 
Stained here and there with various ugly blots 



MORNING STAR. ^7 

Of sin and patches of discordant hue. 
Yet had she not another : so her heart 
Grew sad and melancholy even to tears, 
That she must be seen at the Kmg's palace, 
If seen at all, so wretchedly attired. 
Meanwhile the messenger made haste, for time 
Was pressing, and the King's command he said, 
Was urgent, that no needless vanity 
Should interfere with love, but filial trust 
And confidence atone for past neglect 
By prompt obedience to present duty. 

So through the channel of the sea he led her, 
From which emerging, after no small strife 
With sorrow and dismay, her garments shone 
More brightly in the rising Sun of hope 
And love, soft smiling now over the waves, 
Where slumbered all the World's alluring shows — 
Its pride, its power, its fame, its glory, dust. 

Advancing toward the Wilderness, the light 
Of faith grew sometimes dim, and hunger preyed 
Upon the heart, cut off from Nature's springs 
Of pleasure, and incompetent to bear 
The unrestrained effulgence of the Skies. 
But, of an affable and patient spirit, 
Not many murmurs rose of discontent, 
Before the heavenly showers began to fall 
About our pathway. Joyful then it was 
To see her feed upon that mystic bread, 



28 THE MORNING STAR. 

From everything in Nature gathering 
Instruction and dehght. Flower, leaf and stone, 
Even the desert sands, were radiant 
With a poetic glow of imagery- 
Peculiar to Love's charmed spring ; the clouds 
Dropped knowledge, and each wind with honey-dew, 
Odors and balm, came laden. From the Rock 
Abundant waters flowed ; the mountains blazed, 
And spoke in thunder tones, proclaiming Love 
To God and man, life's everlasting Law ; 
Fair was the Tabernacle of the Lord, 
Adorned with gold, with azure curtains veiled ! 
Fairest the Ark of His Redeeming Love ! 
The cloud of His protecting providence 
Was almost to the eye of sense revealed ; 
His Spirit, a safe counsellor and guide. 
Made plain the path of duty in the midst 
Of thick-strewn doubts and perils. 

Thus through all 
The varying phases of that wondrous journey 
Which men and Nations must alike pursue. 
When to the higher life of Freedom called. 
Our Traveler passed in safety, till arrived 
Upon the borders of the Promised Land, 
Where, as a youth schooled in the mysteries 
Of Art and Science takes his blade or pen. 
His plow or pruning hook, to join life's battle, 
Or toils of manly industry, the soul. 
Instructed in the laws and mysteries, 
Of the celestial life, yearns to engage 



THE MORNING STAR, 29 

In virtue's sacred warfare, or in arts 

Diviner of domestic love and peace. 

Thus, by the Spirit urged to leave the v/alks 

Of solitude and join Immanuel's host, 

Battling, with broken ranks, to rid the world 

Of Sin's prolific broods, her maiden heart, 

Modest and reticent, in evil hour 

Gave heed to its false spies, to Fear and Doubt 

Lending the ear, rather than Faith and Hope, 

God's witnesses. Turning from duty's call, 

She would have fled, but worse calamity 

Saw in retreat, with loss insufferable 

Threatened, of all her heart esteemed most dear. 

Thus thrown into confusion, sore distressed 

By her unfaithfulness, she sought again 

To advance, and craved new opportunities 

To prove her love sincere. Nor was her prayer 

Denied, but vainly granted ; all her powers 

In thraldom lay to some mysterious spell : 

A willing spirit had no will to move 

Rebellious flesh to action till the hour 

Of new probation passed. Then Conscience poured 

Her blows like rain and all the face of Heaven 

Grew black with gathering storms, at sight of which, 

Instead of flying to the only refuge 

For sinners built of God, Love's Golden Ark, 

With unbought grace and saving knowledge stored, 

She only begged of Him another chance 

To save herself. 

Oh ! it was agony 



30 THE MORNING STAR. 

But to look on that conflict, as she strove, 
With a persistence which had once o'erborne 
The power of generous Nature, to atone 
For her ingratitude by some good act 
Of pure obedience that should unlock 
The gates of her lost Paradise ! 

Too long 
Mute witness of the wasting strife I stood, 
Trusting that He who had so well begun 
Would finish his good work without aid asked 
Of mortal tongue, but soon my error learned. 
When, as I mused amid my garden toils. 
She came and said to me with bated breath 
As one breaks news of woe, ' 'Tis over now ; 
I have received my sentence, and have come 
To say a sad and long farewell to you :' 
And w^th a clinging accent on the ' you * 
She clutched my heart as with the iron grasp 
Of one in drowning agonies. 

O Christ ! 
In that dread hour I saw, and wondered not. 
How thou couldst leave the throne of bliss, and fly 
Beneath Death's lifted dart and pour thy blood 
Like water on its breast to bring back hope 
Into the fading eye of a lost World ! 
Taking thereof, unto these pallid lips 
I pressed the soul-reviving anodyne, 
Pleading a Saviour's love, stronger than death, 
Stronger than that to which death seemed a joy, 
The double death when drear Gethsemane 



THE MORNING STAR. 3 1 

Echoed his moans, and the relenting Cross 

Shook with that cry which veiled the pitying Sun, 

" Eloi ! Eloi ! lama sabbacthani ? " 

For thee, sad soul, that cry went up to Heaven 

And brought down rest — rest for the bleeding heart 

Which in its uttermost extremity 

Still adds to every plea, " Thy will be done." 

" Alas, my brother, with the balm still comes 
A thorn for troubled conscience ! Is it well 
To say Thy will be done, and hft no hand 
To do what God requires ? — so unhke Him 
Who bore his cross till on it he was borne ? " 

" Yet even He, in his humanity, 

Was found too weak to bear his cross alone ; 

He staggered 'neath his burden and at last 

Gave up, in utter nothingness of self, 

To bear God's just rebuke against a World 

Which having sinned, can no more keep His law, 

Unhelped of grace, than death can bring forth life." 

"But grace will help when we a helping hand 
Obediently put forth, powerless till then 
For our deliverance. It is for this 
My Saviour long has waited, long has plead 
With my rebellious will to bear the yoke 
Of God's commands, beneficent and light, 
But for my heart's amazing wickedness." 



32 THE MORNING STAR. 

" Say rather its infirmities : ' The spirit 

Indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.' 

Ev'n in the face of mortal agonies 

The earth-bound soul will slumber till the voice 

Of its rejected Lord, whose least command 

It cannot keep till tears of blood have flowed 

From his fond bosom, wakens it again 

To consciousness and shame ; and even then 

It can but fly his side in the dark hour 

Of peril when the secret sin which walks 

In company with honest purposes — 

When glory-loving Selfishness, betrays 

The Son of God to death. But He resigns 

Only his mortal part, from man assumed, 

That he might rescue it from Sin's embrace, 

And death, inseparable shade of sin. 

Returning presently He will uplift 

Both his and our united manhood, purged 

Of those impurities which so long clog 

The spirit's action, making it the slave 

Of Weakness and Disease, Sin's fertile race. 

'' This is the glorious work He now had wrought 
In my frail body, clothing it with strength 
To bear the spirit's weight, had I obeyed 
His quickening commands. From first to last 
Man has a part to do in life's great work, 
Else no more life, but idle mimicry, 
A barren pantomime of Nature's powers. 
If to the soul no righteous act belong, 



THE MORNING STAR. 33 

Whence the distinction between faith and sin ? 
What more is man than a wind-shaken harp, 
Or sea-voiced organ with ten thousand keys, 
On which when God has played some heavenly airs 
With his right hand, He sweeps it with his left, 
And makes it groan harsh discords, just to prove 
The first was music and expose the effect ? 
Wherefore methinks 'tis time this truant vine, 
So tenderly nourished, cease to cast its fruit. 

" Ah, who shall say, 'tis time ? Tis ever time 

That Sin had not o'erwhelmed the world in death ; 

That Earth had wakened from her dreams and stood, 

In marriage robes of light and love arrayed, 

To meet her Lover hastening from the Skies. 

Time draws the kink in many an argument. 

And only he can disentangle it. 

But Time is sick and seldom keeps his hour. 

And halt and blind withal, for when Sin pierced 

His eye with her foul dart, he backward ran 

A thousand leagues into the wilderness 

Of ancient Night, dragging his shattered coach, 

With its wrenched axil and crazed bridal pair, 

In ruins after him. Christ reined him back ; 

But only He who holds the rein now knows 

His place : man ever sets his post too near, 

Because it shines with such a goodly light. 

That, like the sun, it seems but a bare league 

From every generation : — nor indeed 

Is it from their world farther ; so 'tis well : — 



34 THE MORNING STAR, 

But the great World has a much larger day, 

And the great Man who draws his life from it, 

As doth an unhatched eaglet from the egg, 

Is but a weak and puling infant yet, 

In virtue, though his head be like Mont Blanc 

In vanity and sin. Thereat both Truth 

And Mercy may with Equity rejoice, 

In hope that slow bespeaks a solid growth. 

Hark you, should he whose dust Heaven did refine 

Six generations of the stars — his soul 

As long revolved in God's creative thought — 

Who, poised at last upon Creation's spire, 

To face God's breath and glitter back his smile, 

Did let the devil throw him to the ground 

And ne'er cry Hold — not holding fast the rod 

Of God's command like Him who, later, stood 

On Salem's Temple to reclaim his right 

By simple faith — shall this poor shifting vane, 

Broken, defiled and battered by its fall, 

Mount back again o'er the enormous pile 

Of hghtning-blasted Nature in an hour ? 

Or when by matchless goodness from the mire 

Drawn forth, and washed in Mercy's crimson streams. 

Shall it of its own power and virtue boast ? 

Or dream of glory ? Not a single stair 

Shall he be lugged, but he shall give God thanks, 

Even that he could consent to be thus drawn 

Out of the rubbish of his fallen house. 

How can the dead arise ? Can he put forth 

A motion of his will, or animate 



THE MORNING STAR. 35 

Desire, whence motion springs, till in him God 
Replant uprooted power and liberty ? 
Power planted is God's talent, freely lent. 
For beggared man to merchant with and gain 
A livelihood or competence, in trust 
Of his kind Benefactor who, betimes. 
Calls for both interest and principal. 
His due, that we may not forget our thanks. 
And, freely rendering up our borrowed wealth, 
A double portion from His hand receive. 

" Or the just doom which for the idler waits — 

To be outcast from His indignant presence 

To utter darkness. But, because most just, 

I cannot bear my punishment, like Cain 

A vagabond henceforward in the Earth, 

Till to her sighing breast she kindly takes 

The blood-stained clod, haply with penal flames 

To purify it for some better use — 

The thing that stained it gone to other fires, 

As feajfully beneficent and just. 

Have I not crucified the Son of God 

Afresh, and put his love to open shame 

Before the angels ? O ungrateful soul ! 

Whom hast thou but thy rank iniquities 

To blame for fruitless penance self-incurred ? 

" Nay, thou hast but, through impotence of faith, 
Sin-born, yet by redeeming love atoned, 
Declined his offered service, like the twelve 



3^ THE MORNING STAR. 

Who fled his presence at the fiery hour 

Of trial, but withdrew not thence their hearts, 

Fast bound to his in agonizing love. 

Till love of Goodness for its own sweet sake, 

And pure desire of virtue's crown, be dead, 

Sin may destroy the outgrowth of the life 

Invisible, but touches not its root. 

Which, watered by the crimson rain of Heaven, 

A thousand times will spring with hope, and lift 

Its pleading palms in air, nor once receive 

From the glad, pitying Sun a cold rebuke." 

'' But are not all moving toward Heaven or Hell 

By slow gradations ? Distant seems the goal, 

And easy of escape, where Folly leads 

The pleasure-loving throng down the broad road 

Of self-indulgence — distant never less, 

Through Fancy's glass beheld ; but every step 

A step more near, diminishes at once 

The power and wish to change, while the poor soul 

Grows ever more absorbed, more bound with cords 

Of habit, till at last, though with some warmth 

Of nature moved, or lingering sparks of grace, 

It grows oblivious to God's kind voice, 

Fainter and fainter through the twilight heard 

Calling it back to life, and, step by step, 

Like an old man descending to the grave, 

Sinks down into the shades of endless night. 

Oh ! from this horrible doom it is I flee, 

Till my weak limbs can bear me on no more. 

And my poor brain grows dizzy with its flight." 



THE MORNING STAR. 37 

" Then let us no more strive, but prostrate fall, 

Here at the foot of this red, weeping cross, 

Which only bars that melancholy road. 

O Father of the fatherless, and Friend 

Of the oppressed! Helper omnipotent 

Of them that have no strength, the grievous load 

Of our infirmities and wickedness 

Take from us, for the love of thy dear Son, 

Whose blood our sins have shed, and on us pour 

That renovating stream, that our cold hearts, 

All empty, dead, corrupt without thy grace. 

May henceforth beat in unison with thine, 

And more reflect thy goodness, truth and love." 

" Amen, and yet amen ; so shall we do 
God's mandates and no more despise his law, 
Most meet to be obeyed. O had I stood 
Faithful in trial's hour, his mighty arm 
Had girded me to run the glorious race 
Of immortality, as when of old 
Elijah ran before the king ! My voice 
Like an apostle had rung forth to call 
Mankind to peace and freedom ! All the Earth 
Had listened and believed, all nations joined 
Immanuel's conquering host, beating their swords 
To plowshares and their spears to pruning-hooks. 
Never to learn war more, — in nobler arts 
And heavenly industries employed. But see ! 
He comes again ! my dear Redeemer comes 
With offers new of mercy ! I will now 



38 THE MORNING STAR. 

Be still and let Him lift me to his arms, 
And kiss away my tears, and pour sweet balm 
Into my crying wounds, and lift my feet 
Over this narrow stream to Canaan's banks, 
All beautiful with virtue's fadeless blooms ! — 
Lo, He has passed ! the vision fades ! the cloud 
Returns and closes darkly round my soul, 
No more to lift its awful gloom ! " 

— Alas, 
There is no death but death ; no royal road 
From Earth to Heaven but that the King has trod : 
And no man ere, like Him, gave up the ghost 
By his own motion ; whether this or that 
We will, the act is life. Smite then O God ! 
And slay in thy own fashion — one with fire, 
And one with frost, with lightning one, and one 
With lingering plagues ! — ten thousand ministers 
Wait thy command to purge our souls of pride. 
And scour our vessels of mortality : 
But this seems hardest — this the bitterest cup 
For mortals mixed — to be thrust back from Heaven 
Into a living grave, where soul and mind 
Disjointed fall apart, as bone from bone 
And flesh from flesh — there 'mid delusive hopes 
And mocking phantoms of delight, to feel 
The gnawing worm rankle amid the nerves 
Of consciousness, and the insatiate fire 
Pluck at life's elements, till all is still 
As dust in the cold coffin. From this hell 
Great God deliver us ! Did He lie there, 



THE MORNING STAR. 39 

Who drank each cup offered to human lips, 

And wrung the dregs ? Aye, at the midnight hour, 

When all his bosom friends — bone of his bone, 

Flesh of his flesh — fell from him, and when Thou, 

Soul of his soul, stood from his soul aloof. 

An awful moment — when the iron Earth 

And brazen Sky no pitying tear let fall, 

But the World's broken bond left him to pay 

To the last farthing, that a bankrupt race 

Might from his soul's exhaustless treasures draw 

Perpetual ransom — then his spirit felt 

Death's terrors ; then his judgment was removed, 

His light became as darkness, and his strength 

Ashes : — the grave was then a place of rest. 

But lo ! that gulf which like the Dead Sea drank 

Jordan's perpetual tribute, and still cried 

" Give ! give ! I thirst ! " and, deep beneath the main, 

Rolled on its leaden billows, soon o'erflowed. 

When Heaven's vast Ocean rose and poured its floods 

Into her seething cauldron. Hell's huge maw, 

Which gorged a race and still grew cavernous. 

As when Leviathan sucks at a draught 

A billion insects dancing on the waves 

Over the unseen jaws of Destiny, 

Soon felt strange surfeit when that Meteor fell 

On Time's dark waters and sank glistening down 

Into its rock-ribbed, wondering vault. Alarmed, 

The Grave spouts forth her Conqueror, and Death 

Amazed, retreats and falls on his own sword. 

O Father ! let it then suffice that we 



40 THE MORNING STAR. 

Approach our foes but near enough to mark 

What our DeHverer has done, — as when 

One looks upon a lion slain, and feels 

His iron muscles, and inserts his hand 

Between those jaws horrent in death, to learn 

How to give thanks to Jesse's warlike son, 

Who stripped his fierceness off, yea, in one hour 

Made both the lion and the bear as tame 

As the meek lambs which else had rinsed their fangs. 

'' Brother I fain would sleep : my soul is sad 
And weary unto death with this long strife. 
Yet dare I not my lids in slumber close, 
Lest they no more should open on a world 
Of beauty, sweet to sight and ravished hope, 
Though justly to unworthy feet denied." 

" O heart to mine most dear ! how would I fain 

Take from my life its joys and make them thine, — 

Its rest to give thy soul an hour's repose ! 

But One far worthier has already claimed 

That noble privilege. O think of Him 

Who had not where to lay his star-crowned head — 

Star-crowned in Heaven but girt with thorns on Earth ; 

For us He bore the weariness and want. 

The sorrows, disappointments, buffetings, 

Pains and asperities of human life, 

Slights from the erring good, and contumely 

From wicked men, that to the desolate 

And broken heart He might apply the balm 



THE MORNING STAR, 4I 

Of his all-healing sympathy and love. 

This heavenly cordial take, darling, and rest ; 

For so He giveth his beloved sleep." 

" What ! shall my heart rejoice while He lies there 

Pale, silent, motionless in the cold grave, 

Where my ingratitude has laid Him ? No : 

Let sorrow rather be its joy, and tears 

Its pleasant wine, till my obedience 

Permits Him to arise and take the crown 

Of Righteousness and place it on my brow — 

Crown ever his, by mercy magnified 

In glory, but in triumph only worn 

When with his ransomed, loving children shared. 

Say, doth a father more in clemency 

Delight than commendation of his child ? 

Obedience reflects the highest praise, 

And none like Mercy grieves to have been born, 

And longs to fly again to her warm nest. 

And sleep forever in Love's blissful heart." 

" Most true and honorable are these words, 

Dear casuist, yet not the whole of truth. 

For Israel's penitence, or deeds of faith 

And virtue by his frail disciples shown, 

Jesus had vainly waited in the tomb. 

But rising thence through God's eternal power, 

He lifted his dead Body, his fair Spouse, 

O'erwhelmed with condemnation, from the grave 

Of buried hope, and poured the healing oil 



42 THE MORNING STAR. 

Of his undying love upon her wounds, 

And gave her strength, aftei a brief repose, 

To do and dare and suffer for his name. 

Then, turning from her idle dreams of power 

And glory, dead to every thought of self. 

She followed her ascending Lord from Earth 

To love's celestial Paradise ; or rather 

That Paradise came down to Earth, when He, 

With all his holy angels, through the clouds 

Of human expectation and desire, 

Broke like the sun through noon-day storms, and poured 

The tender radiance of benignant love 

And self-denying goodness on her breast. 

So let us patiently His rising wait." 

Huntsma7i when the chase is do7ie^ 
If the game be lost or won, 

Unstring thy Boiv : 
Farther toward the morning sitn 

Shall be its throw. 

Youth whose soft ari7is haste to toil, 
Or whose brain to lear?iing's spoil, 

Unstring thy Bow, 
Ere excess cojisunie like oil 

Thy spirifs flow. 

Miner in the mines of thought, 
Seeking; where no man hath sous^ht. 



THE MORNING STAR, 43 

Regard thy Bow ! 
Oft the crown is worn thafs wrought 
The sod beloiv. 

Diver in the soul's deep sea, 
Pearls of peace and liberty 

If thou wouldst know, 
Take what yesus bringeth thee, 

And rest thy Bow, 



III. 

REST ! can the parched, vein-shrunken traveler rest 
In sight of the blue heaven of liquid life, — 
Whether oasis or mirage, — that charms 
His captive eye and nerves his weary limbs ? 
On ! on ! and Mercy grant it be no dream ! 
What though my trusty camel fails at last 
And kneels upon the sand ? — I must more speed 
To drink and bring him back a needful bowl. 
To prove that God is to his promise true, 
And when He calls means we shall follow Him. 

Great God ! she reels ! she staggers ! help her Thou ! 

My staff is broken ; I am but a worm 

Writhing with anguish in the burning sun — 

The fierce, red glare of this impending woe ! 

O why wilt Thou give strength neither to rest, 

Nor labor ? — light to see, nor dark to sleep ? 

But only this distracting horned moon 

Of an unfinished Law, big with the child 

Of Gospel Hope, which many times goes down 

Before it is fulfilled and turns to wane ? 

Have pity and reveal Thy quickening Beam 

Unto the void eye of her struggling soul, 



THE MORNING STAR . 45 

Before too late. One ray from Thy bright throne 
Is worth a thousand tapers lit by men : 
One little breath of Thine can swell the sail 
Which thrice a thousand human arguments 
Puff at in vain. O why should this fair bad 
Wither on its dry stalk, while in my branch 
Flows life which would but cannot that way bleed 
To save a dying sister ? Why should this 
Of all Thy radiant blushes fail for thirst, 
While tantalizing waves laugh round her lips. 
And golden apples nod to her very teeth ? 
Must the last spark of heavenly fire go out, 
And leave our souls but black, unsightly stuff, 
Ere we confess all glory Thine ? O breathe, 
Breathe on the fading coal, and quicken it 
Once more to joyous, heaven-aspiring flame ! 
Strong men go up, knock, enter and find rest, 
Leaving their sin-soiled, blood-stained rags without : 
But now a tender maiden seeks Thy door 
Almost in marriage robes attired, when, lo ! 
Thou bid'st her come, and in Thy bosom hidest 
Thy death-dispelling hand, and from her eye 
Thy latch-revealing beam, till her sick brain 
Reels like a drunken mast with tattered sails 
Flapping the angry wind — yea till the god 
Within her, trembles on his blazing throne, 
And all the steadfast planetary powers 
Threaten to fly their orbits ! Father in Heaven, 
The night is dark, the storm is very sore, 
Open Thy bosom to Thy houseless ones ! 



4^ THE MORNING STAR, 

Dear slumbering Helmsman, wake ! carest Thou not 
Though we all perish ? Speak unto these winds, 
And they shall slink into their caves abashed, 
While from Thy lips flow tranquilizing oil, 
To make the tossed soul mirror Thy calm trust. 

Then, to the mountain tops of faith upraised, 

Prophetic vision blessed my wondering eyes. 

I saw the scattered fragments of that rare, 

Heaven-favored nation who, for conscience sake 

Hugging her golden fetters, cast her crown 

Of glory in the dust, which there to find, 

God sent her, with consuming stroke and flame 

On her fair idols, overwhelming all 

Her cherished hopes with ruin infinite 

And helpless anguish. Lo ! as one deranged. 

Pursuing shadows, from her blissful seat 

Exiled, she wanders in all lands ! Confused, 

Blasted and torn, a nation without head, 

Her fame inverted, lost her high renown. 

She roams the world's vast wilderness transformed 

From bare to bloom by the rejected grace 

Poured from the bosom of her smitten Rock ! 

Disconsolate she treads the spire-crowned streets 

Of New Jerusalem, seeking the shade 

Of her departed glory, long since cast 

Amid time's rubbish, like a broken loom 

On which the royal garments once were woven. 

Or nest from which the eaglets have escaped. 

By whirlwinds on the barren mountain strewn. 



THE MORNING STAR, 47 

But though, as rolls Love's purple chariot 

Through Zion's broadening avenues and lanes, 

That tearless maiden, with dishevelled crown, 

Sighing amid the tombs of buried hopes, 

Be passed as one unnoticed, while most seen 

By Abraham's God and David's Lord, still dear 

For memory's sake, and the immutable bond 

Of solemn promise, and poetic truth 

Of conjugal affection once bestowed, 

Nearest the Father's and the Lover's heart 

She stands, chosen of Mercy to receive 

The key of Earth's great day, and place the crown 

Of love's supreme achievement on the brow 

Her blindness pierced with thorns : to clothe again 

Those limbs in purple, dyed in her own heart ; 

To kiss the feet and hands through which she drove 

The cruel nails, and staunch that bleeding side 

With her soft bosom ! To this end she waits, 

Neglected yet a little while, the hour 

When, from the circle of his conquering march 

Through the great Gentile body of mankind. 

Neglected for her sake that Life might spring 

From her engrafted fountain, and in turn 

Ransomed through her despoiling, Jesus comes, 

With proof invincible, his titles high 

To claim — Sovereign Redeemer of the World, 

The Lord of Sabbaoth and Salem's King. 

Then with the prophet" O the depth ! " I cried, 
" The riches of His wisdom who hath joined 



48 ' THE MORNING STAR. 

So well this fair mysterious frame of being, 

That while one member dips in Jordan's waves, 

Another standing firmly on the shore, 

Or half immersed, extends a helping hand 

To guide it through the depths, then bowing low 

In turn the sanctifying rite receives. 

Thus Soul and Body, Jew and Gentile thus. 

By Heaven's benignant ordinance are joined." 

But what shall turn Euphrates from her course, 
Or win this limned spirit from its dark 
Entanglements ? Caught in the narrow strait 
'Twixt duty and sin-born incompetence, 
With loss of coveted delights, and storm 
Of anguish threatened, the bewildered soul, — 
Turning no more at Reason's call to view 
The substance of its hopes, and truer truths 
Learn from experience, — with steadfast gaze 
Burns after the impossible — the fair 
Receding Vision of Life's Summer-land, 
Radiant with love's imperishable bloom. 
And wisdom's golden fruit. 

What horror then, 
What blankness of amazement on our hearts 
Fell like the shadow of an unforetold 
Eclipse, throwing its weird and awful gloom 
O'er palsied industry and joy, when Doubt 
Could no more doubt the melancholy tale, 
By the wild Bickerings of fancy told, 
That Reason had received a shock. Too long 



THE MORNING STAR. • 49 

And desperately bent on the bright dream 

Of glory just beyond her straining grasp, 

The mental eye grew fixed, and the vexed nerve, 

Weary with its unbroken tension, burned 

With fever heat, and its own morbid flames 

Mingled with the communicated light 

Of nature and of grace, till, in the maze 

Of thought's commingling elements, the true 

And false danced hand in hand, pleasure gave birth 

To pain, and Grief rejoiced that she could grieve. 

Thus out of order chaos came again ; 

Darkness from light, and evil from the seeds 

Of promised good sprang up. Satan was lord, 

And on His cross the Sun of Righteousness 

Bowed down His thorn-crowned head and slept, while 

Death 
Triumphing stood and raised his glittering dart. 
Wrapped round with flowers of a delusive hope, 
As the insidious fowler thus prepared 
His last and fatal snare. " One effort more," 
He whispered '' and this tedious conflict ends ; 
In victory ends. What doth thy Lord desire ? — 
What ask, but certain proof that nought in Earth 
Attracts thee like His love ? Then let thy heart 
No more defile itself with carnal joys, 
Nor taste the world's gross condiments till bread 
Be given it from Heaven, with love's pure wine, 
Fresh from its fountain in the Heart of Bliss. 
No more let human love or counsel turn 
Thy spirit from its purpose, drawing back 



50 THE MORNING STAR. 

Thy feet from Jordan's puny stream, which soon 

Will fly before life's conquering Ark, when once 

Thy faithfulness is proved. At the last hour, 

Jesus, well-pleased, will from His cloudy throne 

Descend, and lift thee from the smiling floods 

Of thy transmuted sorrow, to a seat 

At his right hand, eternal, glorious. 

And crown thee with acceptance, honor, love. 

In sight of thy rejoicing friends, more blessed, 

By thy devoted constancy and faith. 

Than by a weak surrender to their fears." 

So spake the arch- deceiver, by whose power, 

When the true miracle of life is past. 

And God to His pavilion has returned, 

A mocking semblance of the truth is built 

Of life's abandoned forms, whereby the heart, 

Half won to liberty, but thirsting still 

For gain and glory more than godliness. 

And leaning on the arm of human strength. 

Is backward lured to the devouring pit. 

Where all things mortal are consumed : — so spake, 

And to his subtleties her ear gave heed. 

As to an angel's voice. 

O darkest hour 
Of mortal darkness ! when, with iron will, 
Clenched by a drowning conscience, she refused 
All food and consolation till the Sun 
Of her lost hope should rise ! Make haste ! no more 
Of sign and shadow ! Stern realities 
Of famine, torch and sword are at thy gates. 



THE MORNING STAR, 5 1 

Devoted, frantic, blind Jerusalem ! 

A serpent's glistening coil is round thee twined, 

Too strong for mortal arm ! O Death ! how sweet 

Thy pure and orderly comings are, when Love, 

Home-bound, flings back her fond farewell, and glides 

Out of the weary, palHd, restful form, 

To seek the mansions of eternal joy. 

Or hover, in sweet memories, round the hearth 

And table with their vacant seat, not all 

Vacant, and round the evening lamp which shines 

With a more spiritual radiance on the page 

By the present absent-ones most loved ! But Oh ! 

Glare not upon us from the vacant eyes 

Of those we have adored — those whom we love 

More than the best blood of our curdling hearts, 

Which longs for their deliverance to leap forth 

And plead with the destroyer ! 

Vain, all vain. 
Is a fond father's mandate, little used 
To such respect ; — as vain a mother's tears. 
More powerful still. A sister's tender plea, 
A brother's calm appeal alike are vain. 
No : to a higher mandate, and a love 
Profounder, she will this time faithful prove — 
Faithful to death a crown of life to gain. 
So clung bewildered Mary to the cross 
Where hung her dying Lord, expecting soon 
To see the Conqueror of Death and Hell 
Transform that wretched scaffold to the throne 
Of an adoring world. What wonder, when 



52 THE MORNING STAR. 

The light divine faded from those fond eyes 
Which had been her chief solace, and which oft 
She had in vision seen, regal with joy 
Beneath the crown of Solomon, she fain 
Had perished also on the crimson sod 
Where o'erwrought reason swooned ? 

Three dreadful days 
At the grave's mouth she lay as one entranced, 
Bound by some strange, mysterious power, as when 
A dove before the serpent's ghastly jaws 
Stands motionless, ready, another moment, 
To stuff his burning throat. Then, summoning 
Counsel both human and divine, I sought 
Once more her couch, and twining tenderly 
The cords of reason round her dormant soul. 
Seized gently, but with strong, inflexible grasp 
Of will her sturdy purpose, adding "must" 
To vain persuasions. Thus aroused, the fiend 
In her distempered brain flashed fire and hurled 
Defiance ; but I saw that he was chained 
By the strong angel who kept guard of him 
In Ivove's invincible name. Then adding strength 
To inward power, I raised her drooping form 
Half upright, and there held, while from my eyes 
She drank the calm, fixed purpose. Swift along 
The tremulous nerves the clear conviction flashed 
That time was ripe for change — that Truth had spoken 
The edict of a stern necessity, 
To draw her from the grave of a dead hope 
Back to life's cold realities. Alas ! 



THE MORNING STAR, 53 

How could she bear Earth's mockeries again ? 

That silent tomb, with its pale, princely Guest, 

Was sweeter than a Christless world : — and then 

She sank again upon her couch and clung, 

In tearless agony, to her fond dream. 

But with a hold less resolute, less firm. 

Slowly she bent her conquered will to mine. 

First struggled hard, then half embraced the chain, 

Revolted, yielded, threatened, scolded, plead ; 

But still from self-imprisonment came forth. 

Looked on the face of Nature, and partook, 

Reluctantly, her bounty, looked on life. 

As from a frozen mountain-top, erewhile 

With glory crowned, a stranded aeronaut, 

His heaven-bound bark to sudden anchor drawn, 

Gazes abroad over a mist-clad world, 

In servile toils or sensuous pleasures lost. 

On Home, the scene of conflicts and defeats 

Immeasurably sad, she dared not look. 

But with averted thoughts walked to and fro 

Amid its faded blooms, striving to shun 

The stings with which e'en love itself seemed armed, 

To drive her from its doors. 

So she went forth, 
An exile from her native paradise. 
Just forty days, as by her chronicles 
Long afterwards I read. Her silken chain 
Freely transferring to the faithful hand 
Of a devoted sister wise to mark 
The delicate needs of health, she went abroad 



54 THE MORmNG STAR. 

A wanderer in the World's vast wilderness, 

Obedient to the law of others' wills, 

And the imperative demands of health, 

That the exhausted nerve, relaxing soon 

To infant tenderness, might drink new life, 

Rest and diversion, from the mingled springs 

Of nature, social intercourse and art. 

Soon heart and brain regained their equipoise ; 

Love in her eyes and laughter on her lips 

Resumed their favorite seat. Returning then, 

Lovely as Dian after brief eclipse, 

But with an inward sadness, half concealed 

In kindness from her friends, and with a doubt 

If she at all were thought of in the Skies, 

She gave such diligence as feeble health 

Permitted, to alleviate the ills 

Of poor humanity, finding in these, 

Not the gilt crucifix which anchorites 

In caves and dim cathedrals bow before. 

Nor that, as vain, in duties self-imposed, 

But the true cross which the meek Lamb of God 

For our deliverance and example bore, 

Formed of the rude, harsh growths of common life- 

The manifold afflictions and restraints. 

Humiliations, hungerings, conflicts, deaths, 

To which the child at once of Earth and Heaven 

Must needs be subject in a sin-wrecked World. 

Yet He not only his appropriate share 
As David's son endured, but greater load, 



THE MORNING STAR. 55 

Ta,ken from his o'erburdened countrymen, 

Who, seeing there such godlike energy, 

Piled on him the huge mountain of their woes. 

All which he bore with patience in the strength 

Drawn momently from power's exhaustless Fount, 

The bosom of his Father, from whose trust, 

Amid the wilderness of tangling cares, 

Conflicting interests and rival claims. 

Which form the battle-ground of human life, 

Satan essayed to lure him, witli the bait 

Threefold, by which he long has kept the World 

Dangling upon his hook. To appetite 

He first appeals, unto ambition next, 

And finally to fear ; but all in vain 

He plied his arts to draw that loving Soul, 

From its firm anchorage, and send it forth, 

Adrift on glory's phosphorescent seas. 

In selfish quest of joy. Behold, instead, 

The meek and faithful son, the brother kind. 

The generous neighbor, the instructor wise, 

And the renowned physician who relieves, 

With tender hand, the sorrows of a race. 

And ask no other fee but thanks to God. 

Ah ! what were all the thrones of Jupiter 

To such dominion over Selfishness, 

The devil that doth most afflict mankind ? 

Then stood revealed the Son of God, distinct 

Above the blushing throng of heroes bald, 

And demigods, that long had swayed the Earth 

And won its blind applause. New hght that hour 



56 THE MORNING STAR. 

Dawned on the World, and through its dusky vales 
And taper-lighted streets began to move. 

But while the Son of God behind the veil 

Of his enshrouding manhood wrought, concealed 

In part, in part made known, by his rude mask, 

His followers to some external heaven 

Their thoughts directed, from ambitious dreams 

Of glory and preeminence, of power 

And vengeance, unconverted. Deeper yet 

The renovating flame of love divine 

Must penetrate, until the very roots 

Of sin and weakness are consumed ; till Self 

Lies prostrate in the dust, and only God, 

Dwelling in all his works, as in a house 

Not made with hands, is worshipped : until then, 

The stoutest heart will quail before the blast 

Of warring elements that ever beat 

Around the narrow isthmub between death 

And life, to winnow well the golden grain. 

Mark how the boldest of that stricken band, 

On whose pale lips the extreme pledge of love 

Was not yet cold, bowed like a hollow reed 

Before the tempest, when sustaining grace 

Was but a moment from his heart withdrawn. 

But when the loving Saviour, taking hence 

The shadow of himself, himself did give 

To be the meat and drink of those he loved, 

By inward virtue to the soul revealed. 

They who but yesterday, like timid sheep, 



THE MORNING STAR. 57 

Fled from their Shepherd's side, to-day, more bold 
Than Hons, calmly front the raging throng, 
Or frowning judgment seat, ready, like Him, 
To seal their testimony with their blood. 
Thus from the ashes of a blighted World 
Upsprings a fairer Earth, a sweeter Heaven, 
Wherein dwells Righteousness from the pure root 
Of love unfeigned arising — love to God 
Incarnate in the love of Man — not there 
Confmed, but heavenward rising to its Sire, 
Indissolubly joined with Him whose life 
Pervades both Heaven and Earth, Soul of our Soul, 
Light of our light, whose Spirit, through faith's root 
Admission gaining, rises up and flows 
Through every faculty, blossoms in love, 
And burgeons in the fair expanse of thought, 
Author and partner of the soul's deep joy. 

Say then, fond muse, how fared it with our Dove, 

After her lofty nest by the rough winds 

Was twice unseated ? Then beneath the Rock, 

Upon the very ground, she fain worJd build, 

Unwilling more the storm to tempt. At first 

You should note nothing ; — a few broken twigs 

Lay cross-wise here and there — at intervals 

Another added ; then a little moss. 

Which the kind Rock let fall, was loosely cast 

Amid the pile. At length they shifted round 

To a rude circle, and a tuft of wool, 

Plucked by the envious hedge, was pressed between 



58 THE MORNING STAR. 

The angles. Feathers next from moulting doves, 
Or such as fell beneath the hunters ami,^ 
Were added ; then a little down^^and thus 
Warmer and softer grew her bed, till, when 
The woods were boisterous, she could steal away, 
And find in her snug cleft a little rest. 

Faint not, Pilgrim, Jesus guards thee, 

Watches o'er thee with an eye 
Mild and tender as the rainbow, 
On the flying cloud of su}?wier, 
Saying " All the wrath is by.'"- 

What though Jordan's raging torrent 

Rolled above thy trembling breast ? 
Since our Ark those waves divided, 
Heavens immortal Dove descending, 
Makes the broken heart His nest. 

Think of sorrow's night no longer : 

Banished all its guilt and gloo?n, 
Through salvation s crimson portals, 
Lo ! the Bridegroom of the Alorning 

Floods the blushing soul ivith bloovi ! 

Who is this that conies from Edom, 
Godlike, der the cringing wave ? 

This with garments red from Bozrah, 

Glorious in His apparel. 

And omnipotent to save ? 



THE MORNING STAR , 59 

While with tears His feet we cover ^ 

Kiss them, wipe them with our hair, 

He our souls shall wash all stainless 

In the Fountain of Bethesda — 

In the Fount of Love and Prayer. 

Hark ! what heavenly music welleth 
From those lips in blessing blest — 

" Come to me, all ye that labor, 

And with grief are heavy laden — 
Come, and I will give you rest. 

Take my easy yoke upon you. ; 

Bear my burden, it is light, — 
^Tis my burden to believe me. 
On my righteous arm reposing. 

And true love my yoke of might'* 

God be thanked for such a Saviour ! 

God be praised for such a Son I 
Gentle Shepherd, Thou hast won me — 
Froi7i Thy fond, pursuing footsteps 

I no more will blindly run. 

At Thy sacred feet reclining. 

Listening to Thy words of cheer. 
All my sins and woes forgotten. 
All my empty trusts forsaking, 

Ojtly Thy sweet voice I hear. 

Loving much, as much forgiven. 

Lead ine to our Father s throne^ 



60 THE MORNING STAR. 

Let me gaze upon His glory, 

Feed me with Thy truth and beauty, 

Make me all Thine own, Thine own. 

Then Love's willi?ig angel send me 

Where the himgry sigh for bread, 
Where the weary, captive spirit 
On the thorny couch of conscience 
Pillows her despairing head. 

When Thy rod its work has finished, 

Kindest then when most severe, 
And she fails back on Thy bosom, 
In her fainting heart L'll whisper, 
" Now is thy salvation near'' 



IV. 



As falls the April rain through boughs long bare, 
Patters and trickles through the crisp, brown leaves, 
And, without other answer, sinks away 
Into the cool, rich earth, till, presently. 
The sweet anemone her azure eye 
Unlocks, with timid glance peering between 
The rough fringe of the autumn's winding-sheet, 
To see if Spring indeed be come again — 
So fell Hope's warblings on a pensive heart : 
There was a rustling of sad memories, 
A stir of roots long bound with icy chains, 
A secret swelling of the buds of hope. 
And silence. 

God fears not that He should haste. 
A day had closed in tempest ; and a night 
Of arctic length and gloom, changing from dun 
To crystalline obscure, studded with stars 
Whose beams were dagger-points, while the cold moon, 
Like a weird sentinel, with measured step. 
Trod round, at intervals, her icy beat, 
Rolled slowly o'er her spirit. Gallantly, 
While danced upon the wave one beam of day, 



62 THE MORNING STAR. 

She had pressed onward, with heroic zeal, 

To find an open passage 'twixt the dead 

And hving, or a sea by native warmth 

Sustained. Into the icy jaws of Fate 

She drove, till round her groaning bark they closed, 

And made her soul a captive. In a world 

Of darkness and of frost she learned how much 

Of heavenly fire abides in human hearts. 

When from the Sun of Righteousness they turn. 

Slowly new morning dawned, in sober gray 

Advancing, sign of prosperous end ; but cold 

Over the snowy landscape shot the pale 

Intelligential beams, in them no warmth, 

But rather coldness visible, — whereat 

We murmured not, remembering the storm 

When day rose ruddy. Cautious over much, 

I doubt not, we avoided paths once found 

Disastrous, and with diligence pursued 

What shifts for health or happiness Time brought. 

Who fumbled all his pack, with goggled eyes. 

Held up his wares and gilded ornaments. 

And cried his trumpery, admiring much 

He could find nought her either need to suit. 

While thus employed striving to quench the flames 
Of civil discord in her suffering form, 
And vv^ondering whereto the late providence 
Might point, anon, as with the lightning's flash, 
God rent in twain the gilded veil which masked 
With lying shows of liberty and peace, 



THE MORNING STAR. 63 

A virgin nation's like infirmities, 

And on the world's careening stage led forth 

The actors in a grander tragedy ! 

Mysterious Muse who, to my wondering eyes 
Holding the mirror of lustrous life, 
Instructest me therein with awe to read 
The story of a race by sin enslaved. 
By grace divine redeemed; attune my harp 
To sing the rising theme, and show the bond 
Of high analogy which links the past. 
Present and future, things of earth with things 
Above the earth, attesting God supreme 
Over life's twofold realm. With his left hand 
He shapes the growth of nations, while his right, 
Upon the wreck of empires, thrones and states 
Grown proud and tyrannous, or in the womb 
Of their protecting orders, nourishes 
That supermundane Kingdom which, ere long, 
Will resurrect their broken forms, or change 
Them living into new and nobler types 
Of that Celestial Commonwealth where Love 
With Liberty presides. Whence then the strife 
Which shook with mortal throes a virgin Realm 
And drove her from the golden gates of Peace 
Into war's howling wilderness ? — What cause 
The contest urged when, maddened to his fall, 
Oppression's Dragon with hi-s sinuous tail 
Drew down the third part of Columbia's stars 
In foul revolt, plunging a continent 



64 THE MORNING STAR. 

Beneath the crimson deluge of God's wrath, 
And pouring men, like nitrous grains, incensed, 
Into the belching hell of civil war ? 

When from the seeds of Liberty and Light, 

By persecution's storms from the broad oak 

Of Reformation scattered o'er the waste — 

Exiles for conscience sake, in hungry quest 

Of Freedom's bread and air with which to sing 

God's jDraise — a sturdy and truth-loving race 

Had sprung — the jealous British Pharaoh then 

In harsh colonial bondage strove to bow 

The Israel of nations. Long he bore 

The hot indignity till God at length 

His groanings heard, and, with an outstretched arm 

And a high hand, from Egypt led his People, 

In Revolution's bloody sea baptized 

To Freedom, Justice and Fraternity. 

Soon through the wilds of their transition stage 
They took their march, led by the shining hand 
Of Providence, and fed with wisdom's dews, 
Their several Tribes ere long in one firm band 
Cemented by a solemn covenant, 
Distinguishing, in members manifold, 
One organism of United States, 
After the perfect pattern seen above, 
Where the great stellar hierarchies join 
Their shining ranks and orders infinite, 
Obedient to a universal Code, 
In one vast Empire, one broad Realm of Light, 



THE MORNING STAR, 65 

Where Liberty and Law, in wedded walk 

Bring forth the heavenly harmonies, and build 

The stable mansions of enduring peace. * 

To fashion such an empire here below, 

On pillars of Eternal Justice based, 

God set his hand, but while his finger wrote 

In secret on thought's radiant mountain tops, 

The People, slipping faith in Righteousness 

And Freedom, bowed before their Golden Calf — 

To Slavery and Carnal Policy 

Bending the supple knee. " These be thy gods 

O Land of Liberty ! " they cried, and joined 

In merry dance around their brave Device, 

Hastening to rivet on the hapless slave 

The fetters wrenched from their harsh stepdame's grasp. 

Soon to another tune they marched, soon drank. 

In tears. Oppression's bitter dust, which bred 

Intestine conflicts and became thenceforth 

A deadly poison in the nation's blood, 

Working far down beneath the seeming flush 

Of health and beauty to corrupt the streams 

Of honor, righteousness and faith. Full hot 

The contest raged, threatening with utter ruin 

The life of that apostate Commonwealth : 

But interceding love prevailed, at length, 

To win from God a respite of the doom 

Inevitably that day sealed. The Law 

Engraved on tables mutable, by man 

Prepared, safely within its Golden Ark 



66 THE MORNING STAR. 

Reposed, and in the Tabernacle framed 
By human industry and skill divine. 

Onward they moved beneath Heaven's sheltering cloud, 

Spreading their tents afar o'er mount and plain ; 

But when in prospect of the final triumph 

Of Universal Liberty they stood, 

The dust of that base idol turned their feet 

From Freedom's golden gates and warlike toil 

Back to the howling wilderness. Pursued 

By haughty Amorites they fled, nor staid 

Their march, till almost to Egyptian bondage 

And infamy returned. Twice forty years 

From their approach to Liberty's fair shores, — 

Repeating sin and doubling its account, — 

They wandered in the dismal wilderness 

Of sectional animosity and strife. 

Where Korah lifted his rebellious head. 

Sowing dissensions, and fire, dearth and plague 

Wasted at noonday, till the very springs 

Of Freedom ceased their flow, and the strong arm, 

Chosen to shield the weak and innocent 

From the oppressor, laid redoubled blows 

On Liberty's grieved breast, commanding men 

Formed in God's image to forget their rank, 

And turn slave-hunters for the nation's foes. 

Then from the riven Rock poured forth fresh streams 
Of spirit-stirring eloquence, whereof 
Both all the people and their cattle drank, 
Until that ignominous flight was changed 



THE MORNING STAR. 6 J 

To a more sure advance. But from that hour 

Death waved his sceptre over the doomed state 

Whose Law and Government unworthy proved 

To lead the hosts of Freedom to their rest. 

Wherefore God smote them with a breach, and called 

The Higher Law of Justice, Truth and Right, 

Ordained in Heaven, to be His People's guide, 

And a fit chief and standard-bearers chose — 

A Joshua indeed, o'er diffident 

Of his appointed task, till thrice the Lord 

And People cried, " Be strong ! lead on ! be strong ! " 

Then firm and faithful as a rugged oak 

That on some breezy height, conspicuous 

Above the smoke of battle, calmly fronts 

The molten storm, and waves its country's flag, 

Till victory's eagle perches on its boughs, 

When a stray shell from the retreating foe, 

With envy charged, severs its noble trunk. 

And lays its honors with the martyred brave. 

So led, the youthful host of Liberty 

Moved on, nor backward turned, till Freedom's Ark 

Touched Jordan's foaming waves, when lo ! where seemed 

No way of progress through opposing bounds 

Of law and judgment, suddenly the floods 

In wrath divided, leaving ample space 

For the slow-moving columns to advance, 

And bear to triumph through the open grave 

Of dissolution, the Immortal Cause 

Of Freedom, Justice and Humanity. 



68 THE MORNING STAR. 

But only half the mighty task is' done. 

The harder part remains — to circumcise 

The heart of a great nation from the blot 

Of its iniquities and consecrate 

Freedom's polluted Temple to its high 

And sacred offices, ordained by Heaven 

To be a Refuge for the desolate, 

An House of Prayer and Praise for all the oppressed. 

Now pours the costly chrism on a Land 

Reeking with bondmen's and mother's tears ! 

The cup of her iniquity at last 

Brims o'er I — rank blasphemy its fatal seal 

Fixes on Treason's heaven-defying front ! 

The stone chosen of God is set at nought, 

And an apostate temple boldly reared 

On the dark mire and sands of Slavery ! 

Loose the four winds, O Angels I — from the North, 

East, West and South, gather the scowling clouds, 

Freighted with thunderbolts and battering hail. 

Reserved against the day of wrath ! Make broad 

Destruction's wings ! for not the Sunny Climes 

Alone are guilty — the whole Head is sick, 

And the whole Heart is faint ; — both Government 

And People have joined hands, in impious league, 

To bind the chain upon God's helpless poor ; 

Now let them join, perforce, to loosen it, 

Led by a Master's hand. What gratitude 

To man is due, still faithless, seeking still 

An earthly rather than a heavenly crown ? — 

For who in Freedom's tremblins; court or van 



THE MORNING STAR. 69 

Dares yet strike boldly for the topmost cause 
Of Universal Brotherhood ? For Law, 
Security and Union, to the storm 
They fling the Patriot Banner, leaving God, 
Through His accustomed ways, dark and profound, 
To lead their footsteps to a loftier goal ! 

On mountain, shore and plain, through wood and vale, 

O'er seas and the sea-swelling arteries 

The burning vengeance wasted ! Granite walls 

Fell prone before the soul-dividing blast 

Of thunder-throated trumpets belching doom, 

And walls of flesh rolled down before the scythe 

Of the Great Reaper on his iron car. 

Death staggered with his burden, and the Grave 

Sickened of royal diet ! Brazen isles. 

Floating invulnerable through Hell's red jaws, 

Like risen Titans scoured the fated coast, 

And from volcanic bowels spouting, showered 

Comets and earthquakes and hot thunderbolts, 

Till tattered cities bent their bleeding knees 

And plead for mercy ! Night grew hideous 

With howling meteors, from the fiery hair 

Of Mars shook off, that, like a thousand fiends, 

Shrieked o'er the doomed and trembling capitols 

Of rebel states, till, bursting from beneath. 

Capped with the lurid ghosts of dying fanes, 

A billowy sea of fire lashed the red wings 

Of the retreating Darkness. Wide and deep 

The bloody scourge invaded, making search 

For the rebellious core ; but, hydra-like, 



70 THE MORNING STAR. 

Still round his lair the scaly monster rolled, 
From flaming mouth and eyes defiance flashed ' 
On Freedom's toiling armies, or swept back 
The battle's living waves, and in his harsh 
And torturing folds his hapless victims ground ! 

Why stand the hosts of Liberty at bay ? 

Or backward fly, frantic with maiden fear, 

Before their puny foes, so late despised ? 

Why w^aste in fruitless dashes such array 

Of might and valor as, in Freedom's cause, 

Should breast a frowning World ? Have they too spared 

The Accursed Thing which a just God has doomed 

To swift destruction ? Ah, dissembling Nation ! 

There is an Eye which penetrates thy sin, 

And will reveal thy poverty and strength ! 

'' Deck now thyself with majesty and beauty ! 

Array thyself with excellence and glory ! 

O fair and puissant Virgin ! cast abroad 

The fury of thy wrath ! look on the proud 

And bring him low ! the wicked in their place 

Tread down, and bind their faces in the dust 

Together ! then will I confess to thee 

That thy right hand can save thee ! " 

Vain, all vain 
Those gallant struggles while that secret sin 
Lurks in her tortured breast ! A devil armed 
With mortal sting, sits like an incubus 
Upon her panting bosom, draws her breath, 
And twines his tightening coil around her soul ! 
Dizzy with circling marches, half entranced 



THE MORNING STAR, 7 1 

By some mysterious spell, prone on her couch 
Of agony, at the grave's mouth she lies, 
Inebriate with her dream of liberty 
And self-redemption by the stalwart arm 
Of her own virtue, or in blank despair 
And dumb amazement lost ! 

Then Israel 
Bowed low before the Lord, and honor gave 
To His potential Name, acknowledging 
God only glorious, in whose regard 
The nations of the Earth are but as dust, 
The fine dust of that balance in which Truth 
And Equity are weighed before His saints. 
And found more pondrous than a thousand states, 
With pride inflated, or by cruelty 
Made odious in His sight. 

Up ! Joshua, 
And quit thee like a man ! No longer trust 
In strength of mortal arm, nor longer plead 
With empty hands, but load the rising prayer 
With honest penitence, and mercy shown 
To the oppressed, and justice to the foes 
Alike of God and man ! Stretch forth the arm, 
Power-girded, of a living faith, to save 
A gallant nation from the blinding curse 
Of Slavery ! Give to the instant flames 
That ruthless monster which so long has spoiled 
Freedom's fair heritage, laid waste her strength, 
Defiled her glory, and, at last, with tears 
Of blood, deluged a weary continent ! 



72 THE MORNING STAR. 

'Tis done I Now Glory be to God on High ! 

And on Earth Peace ! — when the abating storm 

Of war has done its work ! Lo ! as the Dove 

Goes fluttering forth from Freedom's rolHng Ark, 

Bearing the Mandate of Deliverance 

To a down-trodden People, from his seat, 

High on God's finger perched, waiting the sign, 

Down swoops the Golden Bird of Victory, 

And hastens where the waves of battle roar 

Round Freedom's trailing flag ! Ere long the winds 

Shift to the north, and with convergent weight 

Sweep down the crested billows ! The strong arm 

Of the fraternal North is firmly drawn 

Around the brave and beauteous South, fast bound 

In the Oppressor's toils ! The grizzly jaws 

Of War begin resistlessly to close 

Around the writhing Monster, till, at last. 

In one terrific blaze, his prostrate length 

Sinks hissing down beneath Hell's roaring flood, 

While joyful millions cloud the heavens with thanks, 

Whereon, as in celestial chariots, rise 

To constellated mansions of renown. 

The raptured spirits of the Patriot Dead ! 

Purged now of inward as of outward bonds, 

Up Canaan's flowery hills, with modest step. 

The resurrected Empire of the Free 

Shall take her march, on deeds of glory bent, 

Above renown and the vain glare of arms, — 

To captivate, with the resistless might 

Of virtue and beneficence, the hearts 



THE MORNING STAR, 73 

Of kings and peoples, winning them from strife, 

Envy and self-aggrandizement to deeds 

Of Christlike chivalry, and arts divine, 

Of peace and love, till, to her utmost bounds. 

The ransomed Earth shall own fair Freedom's sway. 

Hail, radiant Star of Dawn ! chosen of God, 

With thy auspicious sign, to lead the van 

Of Freedom's Golden Age ! Hail, Virgin Queen 

Of Nations, twice baptized to keep the law 

Of Liberty and Justice ! Fairer now, 

In thy humility, when from the shades 

Of dissolution and of judgment drawn. 

Than when ambition's laurels chilled thy brow. 

Go meekly on thy course, trusting no more 

In human strength or skill, but in the Arm 

Omnipotent of Righteousness and Truth 

And all-prevailing Love, whose golden yoke 

Shall henceforth bind thee in fraternal league 

With sister States and Empires nobler grown, 

Through thy benignant ministries. The cross 

For yet a season thou shalt bear, weighed down 

By the sore fruits of disobedience. 

While on thy sympathizing breast are laid 

A World's vast sorrows — all the gathered ills 

Of suffering Humanity, what time 

The poor and the oppressed of other lands 

Flock to the free and bounteous shores ! All hail ! ' 

Sweet Land of Promise ! To the bowing heavens 

Thy golden mountains lift, with honor clothed, 

As with a saintly robe, and o'er the seas. 



74 THE MORNING STAR. 

Wave thy celestial Banner in all winds, 
Proclaiming Liberty, man's birth-right, won 
For each of Adam's exiled, wandering race 
That cools his brow beneath the starry Flag 
Of Freedom, Justice and Fraternity ! 

Hark I as the lightning from shore to shore 

Flashes abroad the solemn warnings 
Mountain and plain with its thunders roar 

And glitter with mailed adorning ! 
Up I for the dream of peace is o'er ! 
Freedom hath grasped her sword of might ! 
God of battles defend the right, 

And hasten the brighter morning — 
When the strife of sivord and tongue shall cease, 
And the Lord of Hosts reign Prince of Peace I 

Flag of the Free, once more unfold 

Proudly thy galaxy of wonder I 
And tell the tale thou hast ever told 

In the battle smoke and thunder ! — 
Strong is the arm, and the heart is bold 
That marshals 'neath thy conquering light. 
To strike for the cause of Truth and Right, 

And cleave the wrong asunder I — 
And hasten the day when war shall cease. 
And the Lord of Hosts reign Prince of Peace I 

Land of the brave and noble-born I 

Land of the mountain, plain and river ! 

Ne'er be thy locks of glory shorn. 
By the hand which thee would sever I 



THE MORNING STAR, 75 

From Evening s gates to the sunny Morn 
Through all thy breadth let Justice diuell, 
And Freedonis God shall guard thee well^ 

And bless thy name forever ! — 
And the wrong and the woe and the strife shall cease, 
And the Lord of Hosts reign Prince of Peace I 

Salem of Rest and Liberty I 

Fair is thy seat on pleasai2t waters ! 
Kings thy nursing -sires shall be, 

And queens shall rear thy daughters I 
Lengthen thy cords from sea to sea I 
Strengthen thy stakes I— they come ! they co77ie ! — 
EartJis houseless wanderers are hastening home, 

Weary of bofids and slaughters ! — 
Here let the conflict of ages cease, 
And the Lord of Hosts reign Prince of Peace ! 



ODAY of Hope and Prophecy ! long sought 
With fainting eyes, and but in vision seen ! 
How many times shall the soft-rolling wheels 
That bring thee toward this Arctic Zone retire, 
With but a widening twilight for each age ? 
Six times have Eve and Morn alternate held 
Millennial course o'er this degenerate Ball, 
Which the Omnific Word is laboring 
To recreate, — feeble, at first, the dawn, 
Ere long in thick and palpable darkness quenched ;- 
All save a solitary star of hope 
In the preserving Ark of Mercy borne, 
Floating above the sullen sea of death. 
At each vast revolution broader grew 
The auroral radiance, until the Sun 
Touched the horizon on the fourth glad morn, 
But sank, ere long, behind the frigid mass 
Of glacial humanity. At length 
The rising glory spread into the North, 
And tinged the Old World to its farthest bound, 
O'erflowing westward, where, amid the wastes 
Of a New World, trodden by savage men. 



THE MORNING STAR. 77 

God had prepared a garden, round enclosed 
By sea and mountain barriers, and, within, 
Watered by four great river-systems, — one 
To westward, compassing the Land of Gold, 
To southward, one round Ethiopia poured, 
A third bordering the winged lion's realms, 
And flowing northward, while the fourth pursues 
Southeasterly its course, and irrigates 
The fertile slopes of that broad Paradise 
Which the Lord planted on the eastern limb 
Of Eden, with all trees of pleasant fruit 
Adorned, and in the midst the Tree of Life, 
Among the various goodly institutes 
Preeminent, and, not far off, the tree 
Of baleful operation, which bestows 
Knowledge of good and evil — Policy. 
Here the Creator, having brought the Man 
Of godlike faculties and soul mature 
For rational exercise, composed from all 
The finer issues of each former age. 
Commanded him to dress and keep the Land 
For a perpetual heritage and home 
Of Liberty and Love. Only huge beasts 
Had Earth brought forth till now, chiefly intent 
On prey and provender — self-interest 
Their only law, acknowledged without shame 
By men who call those nations and themselves 
Christian ! But works more worthy of that name 
Shall soon be seen — nations in which the breath 
Of the Creator shall infuse a soul 
Of generosity, and godlike zeal 
For justice and the general franchisement. 



78 THE MORNING STAR. 

What here befel Heaven's offspring hath in part 
Been shown — how Eve, by Satan's arts beguiled, 
Tasted the fruit of Carnal Policy, 
And saw her offspring rolled in guilt and blood : 
How Adam shared her sin and punishment 
Shall now appear as Thought, discursive, soars 
Above the wilderness, where Zion's host, 
Flying from stripes and bondage in the Old, 
Their Land of Promise sought in the New World. 

Lo ! scarcely had the lips of Deity 

From Zion's mount proclaimed the sacred law 

Of Freedom, Unity and Love, — one Head 

Reigning o'er many members bound by faith 

And brotherly affection in a free 

And spiritual Body, — than the Tribes 

Again bowed low before the Golden Calf, 

Trusting by human righteousness and power 

To gain their promised haven. Then the sword 

Of the Dividing Angel from the cloud 

Of God's enkindling wrath like lightning flashed, 

Severing son from sire, and friend from friend. 

Of all that rebel throng. Incompetent, 

When to the very gates of Peace arrived 

To enter Faith's inheritance through faith, 

By fear and grief distracted, they returned 

Into the waste and desolate wilderness 

Of social anarchy, assunder cleft 

In every member by the entering wedge 

Of dissolution. Into Old and New, 

Conservative, Progressive, Liberal 



THE MORNING STAR. 79 

And Orthodox, they fell, still compassing 
The mount of Carnal Ordinance, by fire, 
Dearth, famine, pestilence and serpent fangs 
Consumed. Full forty years their doleful march, 
Under the sway of Moses, they pursued, 
Learning the minor mandates of the Law, 
Ere to his couch the stern Preceptor turned, 
Leaving his task unfinished. But at length 
God gave his rod to Joshua, transformed 
Into a shepherd's crook, wherewith, e'en now, 
The heavenly Leader gathers Zion's flocks 
And scattered armies for a new advance. 
And as the massing columns, rank by rank, 
Emerging from the Wilderness, with songs 
And hallelujahs greet the rising Day, 
The cloud of God's mysterious Providence, 
Touched with the rainbow tints of Charity, 
Moves onward and condenses to a star. 
Beyond the mists of Jordan, whose dark waves 
Begin to blush, and swiftly fall away. 
Before the Ark of Zion's liberties. 

But what if Deep shall call to answering Deep, 
And Heaven, like Earth, send forth its waterspouts ? 
What if those states in Zion most redeemed. 
And joining to advance the sacred cause 
Of spiritual enfranchisement, be met. 
Mid way, by the confederated powers 
Of darkness and oppression, bearing rule, 
Through ignorance, o'er the deluded serfs 
Beguiled to ruin by an Oligarchy 



8o THE MORNING STAR. 

Of petty lords and tyrants, not content 
With present sway, but eager to extend 
The reahii of bondage, till the kindling skies 
Blaze with such strife as reddened eartli of late, 
When Freedom with her wily Dragon toiled ? 

Such conflict waits the militant Bride of Christ — 
Whether with carnal or with spiritual arms — 
Before her final victory o'er Pride, 
Oppression, Avarice and Unbelief, — 
As many as the populous tribes of Ham 
That vexed the Promised Land, or rebel states 
In Freedom's fair domain. But when the storm 
Roars loudest, and the billows highest dash 
O'er Freedom's trembling Ark, let Zion's hosts 
Rejoice, for their deliverance is at hand ! 
Then shall it boldly be proclaimed that all 
Who stand in God's fair image, whether Jew 
Or Oreek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, 
Are brethren, each of all, entitled thence 
To suffrage in the councils of that State, 
Whose Lord is the Elect of Earth and Heaven. 
So shall the waves of strife increasing first 
Their dying rage and strength, begin to fail. 

Truth's burial is its planting in the soil 

Of the blood-watered conscience. Thrice the Day 

And Night weep over it, and lo ! the grave 

Is suddenly a shrine where emulous throngs 

Pay rival honors to the star-crowned King, 

Eternal, henceforth, and immortal knov»m ! 



THE MORNING STAR, 8 1 

At midnight, when the New Jerusalem 

Is compassed round with armies, when the World 

Rejoices, and the saints in darkness weep. 

When Sin grows bold, and Infidelity 

Struts in the stolen garb of Truth, when love 

Seems hate, and Reason grows irrational, 

And the restraining arm of secular power 

Must needs be added to the sober voice 

Of Reason and Humanity, to save 

Distraught Religion from the yawning gulf 

Of dissolution, anarchy and strife, — 

Then shall the joyful cry at last be heard, 

'^ Behold the Bridegroom cometh with his Bride ! " 

Then shall the Lamb on Zion's top be seen, — 
His chariot by a stalwart griffon drawn, — 
Leading to final victory his hosts, 
In twelve vast corps invincibly arrayed, — 
An hundred four and forty thousand saints 
That have not bowed before the Beast, or borne 
His mark, but on their shining brows, instead, 
The Father's name is written — the bright seal 
Of life and immortality ; — and fair 
Above them in the roseate skies shall wave 
The Starry Banner of the saints, emblazed 
With Faith, Hope, Charity, the triune flame 
Of heavenly Liberty's bright Morning Star. 
So led, and in Truth's armor panoplied. 
They shall advance, shouting the battle song 
Of " Liberty and Union " till the walls 
Of earth-defying Babylon, begirt 



82 THE MORNING STAR. 

With the consuming fires of Love, and roar 
Interminable of Truth's artillery, 
Prostrate shall fall, amid the mingled shouts 
Of angels and of men, to rise no more ! 

How long is theme for guessing this side Heaven, — 

A task not wholly profitless perhaps. 

Since thus the watchmen's eyes are kept alert, — 

Unless while gazing upward to behold 

The Son of Man descending from the clouds 

Of an external heas^en, we fail to note 

His surer advent through the breaking mists 

Of human ignorance and doubt, in light 

Excelling Nature's glory. Thus of old, 

When Zion's hard-pressed legions strained their eyes 

To see the archangel with his flaming torch, 

I>ike a fierce comet with long, smoky train, 

Sweep through the Empyrean to ignite 

This withered Bog, behold, instead, all Hell 

Broke loose and rushing on the frantic Church 

Scattering her altars to the winds ! But lo ! 

'Mid disappointment and apparent wreck 

Begins the expected miracle ! Each coal 

Dashed in mad fury from Immanuel's shrine 

Becomes a torch in the transparent hands 

Of winged firemen, kindling where it falls, 

In the dry grass of an idolatrous age. 

Till the Old World in a red winding-sheet 

Is wrapped, and from their worshipped seats in Heaven. 

The Dragon, with his mythic deities, 

Falls headlong to the howling deep. From thence 



THE MORNING STAR. 83 

He issued forth ere long in new attire, 

As when, though once in the Red Sea o'erwhelmed, 

He rose and followed after Jacob's sons, 

A Golden Calf. Now from the sea he rose 

A full-grown Beast, with seven usurping heads, 

Armed with ten horns of persecuting power, 

Wherewith he pushed the saints of the Most High 

From their inheritance, and drowned the Earth 

In darkness : — Truth and Reason were eclipsed, 

And the World walked in grave-clothes 'mid the tombs 

Of the Dead Ages ! 

But while Death and Hell 
Gloated in triumph o'er the horrid wreck 
Of a world's blasted hope. Time struck the hour 
Of morning watch, and straight a ruddy star 
Rose like a rocket in the northern sky. 
And like a bursting meteor flung its sparks 
O'er half the hemisphere ! Anon the flames 
Of Reformation caught in the dry grass 
And withered leaves, as when, in Autumn sere, 
A locomotive roars along the vales. 
Leading the train of Progress, and from forth 
Its toiling furnace spouts contagious fire, 
Which sends the ghost of the dead Year to Heaven, 
Careering on the smoke of burning hills ! 
So the dry empire of the Latin Beast 
Began to smoke along its northern front 
When Michael placed the torch of Liberty 
In Luther's stalwart grasp, denying works 
Of imitation, or of man's conceit, 
As purchase price of Heaven, whose single key, 



84 THE MORNING STAR. 

Sufficient to command the golden bolts, 

Is naked Faith, effectual through Love 

To works of Righteousness. What wonder Rome 

Bellowed with rage when this great corner stone 

Of Liberty's fair Temple, without hands 

From Zion's mountain cut, fell on the toes 

Of the huge image of adulterous Power, 

And they began to crumble, proving soon 

They were but half iron and half potter's clay ! 

Dawn chases Night, and Evening treads on Dawn, 

Wheel within wheel of being's spiral march 

From darkness and inanity to God ! 

And so it came that the fell Beast whose head 

Was wounded unto death, renewed his life, 

With lengthened lease of power, and added sway, 

What time protesting nations turned to lick 

Their vomit, and impose their cast-off yoke 

On riper protestants, till to the first 

A second beast was joined, from the dry earth 

Of sacerdotal pride and bigotry, 

With lamb-like aspect but a dragon's voice, 

From out whose minor horn issued a score 

Of fragmentary and contentious sects. 

Each bleating for a season with fair show 

Of meekness, and loud cries for liberty, 

Until, good footing gained, at once it wheeled 

And pushed all non-conformists to the wall, 

With a most catholic and puritan zeal 

For undefiled religion. 

Virgin names 
There are, written in gold in the Lamb's book. 



THE MORNING STAR . 85 

Which are not blotted by the impious mark 
Of the Oppressor. These upon their brows 
Wore Love's celestial seal : but for the most, 
Though faggot, ax and dungeon slowly fled 
The rising day, Satan but changed his suit, 
As he knows how, to fit the ruling mode. 
Still plying his infernal rack and torch. 
With sanctimonious zest, to heart and hope 
And name. As finer grows the social warp 
Finer he spins his woof, but still of goat 
And leopard's hair, mingled with stolen wool 
To hide the cheat. 

What differs whether Pope 
Or Parliament, Court or Conventicle 
Decree the pattern unto which the mind 
Must cut its thoughts ? What matter, whether fire 
Or malediction be the penalty 
For looking through one's own eyes at the sun ? 
Is it not persecution ? Veil thy face 
Aholibah, Aholah is outdone, 
For thou hast sinned against the greater light ! 
Hast thou not bowed to graven images. 
And paid thy homage to a hundred saints ? 
And in the name of Virgin Mother Church — 
Still maculate, spite all the honors shown 
By God and man — sought favor at Heaven's bar, 
While nailing each new prophet to his cross ? 
How augur'st thou that Rome is Babylon, 
While thy self-righteous zeal is building high 
The Babel of thy shame ? Enough has Rome 
To wail for at the Grand Assize, but who 



86 THE MORNING STAR. 

Shall stand as her accuser ? Thou raayst learn 
In Jordan's depths, ere then, to pity her, 
And drop the stone from thy adulterous hand. 

Kno\Y then that Babylon is Mystery^ 

The blindness of man's inner consciousness, 

Who seeing truth but dimly through a veil 

Of perishable forms, and deeming these 

Part of the heavenly substance, jealously 

Fights for their maintenance, as one who finds 

His body threatened, and, in ignorance 

Of its light value to the indwelling soul. 

Defiles the diamond to preserve its case. 

There Satan builds his stronghold, and from thence 

Cannot be routed till man's spiritual eye. 

By the long action of o'erbrooding light. 

And Charity's balsamic anodynes. 

Has grown so subtle as ta penetrate 

Each fading guise and see Truth face to face. 

Hereto the ages tend, exchanging still 

Ruder for finer symbols — stocks and stones 

For altars and mysterious rites, and these, 

At length, for verbal representatives. 

Or letter types, that in the womb of Thought, 

Imagination, form the needful eggs 

Of Knowledge, which, by Truth's essential flame 

Impregnated, brings the angelic birth 

Of heaven-aspiring Sentiments and Thoughts. 



THE MORNING STAR. Z'J 

Many stout daughters hath this haughty Queen 

Who builds her cruel house in every land ; 

But paler grows its shadow to the west 

Where Freedom's rival Empire brightest shines. 

As when men speak of " Yankees " in New York, 

They mean their neighbors o'er the Eastern line, 

Southward, " those Vandals of the North," abroad, 

This whole sharp-witted and industrious hive — 

So Babylon to Englishmen means Rome ; 

To Puritans England holds rival claims ; 

Toward other non-conformists, Puritans 

Knew how to play the beast with pious role ; 

And these in turn their heretics pursued. 

With solemn frenzy of misguided zeal, 

Till e'en those hornless lambs that loudest rang 

The bells of Liberty, their lofty creed, 

"God manifest in all," if any dared 

Wed a fair " Gentile," wake the harp's glad soul, 

Or but look on when "hireling priests " gave aid 

At lover's leap, could gently join their heads. 

And hoist them o'er the wall — for charity ! 

And when you rise at last o'er time's dark mists — 

You that are hot in censure of these wrongs — 

And wash your eyes in Canaan's crystal springs, 

I doubt not such a cloud will be removed, 

And fall back, like a mantle, o'er the Avorld. 

Your angel shall exclaim, " O, Babylon ! 

I too have been thy citizen, and helped 

To build Oppression's towering walls, and rear 

The hanging gardens of Self-righteousness ! 

But now, thank God, they are all fallen, fallen ! 



SS THE MORNING STAR. 

How long, O Lord, how long ? Two thousand years, 

Wanting a few, has the mysterious plea 

Of thy Devoted One rung in thine ears — 

" That they may all be one, as Thou in me, 

Father, and I in Thee, that they may all 

Be one in us." Alas, what mean those words ? 

For this have we been fighting many an age ! 

For this have poured out our brothers' blood, 

And shed our own like rain, to make all men 

Unite in one loud anthem to thy praise, 

Without a jarring note to vex thine ear, 

Or medley of discordant parts ! But lo ! 

The more we struggle wilder grows the strain 

With angry discords, till Thy Temple roars 

With jargon such as scattered men of old, 

When pride and infidelity combined 

To build an earthen stairway to the skies ! 

What do we more, who strive with blood-stained hands 

To build a Mansion for the Prince of Peace, — 

Use anger for cement, and hate for gold ! 

Who stretch forth mortal hands unsanctified. 

To stay that Ark which is the stay of worlds ! 

Who, having tuned our dulcimer and harp 

To please our own ear, go about to break 

Our neighbors' lute and cymbal ! — if our throats 

Pipe treble, will have lions pinch their lungs 

To warble with the wren ! Well have we tried, 

O star-crowned Minstrel ! what our hands can do 

To mend the thunder-organ of Thy world. 

On which Thy spirit, breathing peace or storm. 



THE MORNING STAR. 89 

Brings forth such mingled melody our ears 
Can scarce discern the air ! Forgive ! forgive ! 
And lend us grace and wisdom to expound 
Our own, and leave to Thee the master's part ! 

" That they may all be one ! " — ah ! He said not 
" Like one ! " That were a doleful house indeed 
Which had but one continuous honeycomb 
Of cells, however filled with cloying sweets ! 
How tedious were the walks of Paradise, 
If bordered all their length with banks of rose ! 
Only that robe is white in which the dyes 
Of the seven great archangels sweetly blend ! 
Mark with what infinitely varied grace 
God clothes his beauteous form in Nature's vest ! 
And would ye paint His Daughter like a mole, 
Or a bronze statue ? Hence ! ye daubs, nor dare 
To touch His darling with your whitewash brush, 
And your unhallowed mixtures ! In the heart 
Dwells the true rouge, by love's quick chemistry 
Prepared. Not all the creeds in Babylon, 
With all the garnish on St. Peter's walls, 
Can make the Bride of Jesus half so fair 
As one sweet deed of humble charity ! 

If thou would'st have all men with thee agreed, 
Agree with all. Who bade thee take this seat 
Above thy brethren, and assume the guide 
Of faith and conscience ? If thou art our judge, 
Show thy credentials. What ! this mouldy scrip, 



90 THE MORNING STAR. 

Soiled with the dust of ages ? Did He say, 

" By this shall all men ray disciple know ? " 

What if thy father were an Abraham, 

And thou a Judas ? is thy bishopric 

Inalienable ? '* If any will be chief, 

Let him become a servant unto all." 

Where then is Israel's lord ? Were there not twelve 

Born to one Father, all whom he did serve 

As doth a mother, and bestow his life. 

To prove that Love must rule by his own force. 

And that true sovereignty dwells underneath 

The governed, as the root beneath the tree ? 

" One Father, even God ; one Master, Christ ; 

And many brethren peers : "^on this firm stone 

Rests the broad Temple of man's Liberties, 

And though the rains descend, and tempests roar, 

And torrents thunder round its steadfast base, 

Time's latest age shall see its crystal sheen 

Expanding over continents and seas, 

While resurrected states and empires free, 

With homes innumerable of peace and love, 

Securely rest beneath its ample dome ! 

Arm you, therefore, O Patriots of the Cross, 
Who shrink not from such title to a crown, 
But not with carnal weapons ! If the foe 
Invite the civil arm, that arm shall cure 
His madness ; but to you belongs the task • 
Of routing Principalities and Powers 



THE MORNING STAR. 9 1 

Intrenched in servile ignorance and fear 
And superstition, fortresses more strong 
Than ancient Babylon's imperious walls ! 
Your gateway is the lowly river-bed 
Of self-denying love. Go, turn aside 
Euphrates, with a million humble aqts 
Of kind humanity, then enter in 
Bearing the Banner of Redeeming Love, 
Truth's two-edged sword, Faith's shield, and the breast- 
plate 
Of Righteousness, defense more sure than brass, 
Salvation's helmet, and upon your feet 
Those golden sandals, Liberty and Peace ! 

As when an iceberg rolling from the coast 

Of glittering, stark and cold formalities, 

Encounters the Gulf Stream, and, with it, shower 

Of tropic arrows from the noonday sun, 

Soon the pent spirit in its pores begins 

To ask more room ; spar after spar falls off, 

Limb after limb breaks from the rigid mass. 

And, melting, mingles with the joyous sea. 

Whose free glad waves clasp hands around the world — ■ 

So shall Oppression's frigid walls dissolve 

In the approaching summer heats of time*! 

Then shall come Love's espousals ; then all souls 

Inspired with a divine benignity. 

And crowned with Charity's celestial flame, 

Shall flow into the vital harmonies 

And free organic unities of Heaven ! 



92 THE MORNING STAR. 

To vitalize the void, phlegmatic mass 

Of Nature, and her warring elements 

Reduce to order, harmony and grace, 

By the infusion of a nobler life, 

Imparted from His all-creative Word, 

Was God's first labor, then for rest exchanged 

When her machinery, in order set. 

Began to quiver to His tuneful breath, 

And echo Heaven's orchestral melodies. 

And when the crude, chaotic elements 

Of dead Humanity, drinking from Christ 

The spirit of obedience and love, 

Shall from brute proneness rise to manly walk 

Of self-poised liberty ; when rival states 

And churches, belching long with envious rage, 

Shall own the flame of brotherly regard. 

Convert their cannon into railroad bars. 

And the swift-flying messengers of hate 

To telegraphic nerves and tongues of peace, 

With which to bind their members into one 

Consummate Manhood, ordering affairs 

By counsel, and deliberative weight 

Of judgment, in the common interest 

Of Virtue and Humanity, again 

The renovating hand of God shall rest 

Upon His rounded shock of golden sheaves. 

Hark ! from the Golden Mount above 

Resounds the joyful trumpet's zvarning ! 
See where the militant Bride of Love 



THE MORNING STAR. 93 

Girds on her bright adorning I 
Lo, where Heavens immortal Dove, 
Over the warring Lamb of God, 
Fast where Freedom's hosts have trod, 

Leads on the blissful morning, 
When the strife of brother with brother shall cease. 
And the Lamb long slain rule FiHnce of Feace I 

Fmpire of Lights whose sister spheres. 
All round a common center turnins:^ 
Backward have rolled Earth's golden years, 

Fhe lesson of faith inihile leaj'ning. 
Wake ! for thy bridal dawn appears ! 
Waving LLis Banner o'er land and sea, 
With the torch of Love and Liberty, 

y^esus the world is burning I 
Now shall thy sons like the stars increase. 
For Zion's Lord is the Frince of Feace. 

Lo I where the New Jerusalem, 

Fair as the Sun on a golden ocean, 
Flames like a royal diadem 

With love's divine emotion I 
Twelve broad gates, and through each gem 
Enter twelve nations chanting the psalm 
'' Glory to God! Worthy the Lamb 

To receive a world's devotion I 
Cease, O Time ! let thy waiting hours cease, 
And Eternity croivn the God of Feace ! " 



VI. 



METHOUGHT I heard an angel whisper " soon." 
O, who will tell us what means " soon" in Heaven ? 
" Soon, soon," the Warning Angel ever cries, 
" He Cometh who shall come." Men lift their heads, 
Smile, half in hope and half in irony, 
Breathe short, then long, take up the scythe and sword. 
Go sweating, bleeding, staggering on. " Soon, soon 
The Righteous Judge shall come, and shall not tarry," 
Breaks forth again, above their shouts and groans : 
But fainter sounds the echo from beneath, — 
As when a bugle blast, from hill to hill. 
Leaps through the dreamy dark, and dies away 
In the oblivious depths of slumbering woods. 
Each generation hears the trumpet call, 
And hastens toward Heaven's armory; but soon 
Forgets to hope, forgets to fear, forgets 
That to eternity all things are soon. 

" The Son of Man so cometh as a thief 
By night."— 

"Heard you that stealthy footstep, brother ?" 



THE MORNING STAR. 95 

" Where, dearest, on the street ? " 

" Nearer, I think : 
Not farther than the porch." 

" It may have been 
The rustling of the Wind, who often sweeps 
In silken robes through street and corridor. 
And gently taps, or thunders at their doors, 
To let men know there is a Spirit near 
Who gives them all their breath, and will, ere long, 
Recall His ill-used loan." 

" Listen again ! 
It sounds within the hall." — 

" I hear no step, 
Nor deem it possible that one could pass 
The bolted door so silently. Fear not." 

"Well, read to me again." 

" ' If the good man 
Had known what hour of night the thief would come, 
He would have watched.' " — 

" I think I heard a step 
Upon the stairway leading to my room 
Were I to lose my jewels it were sad. 
Our mother gave them to me, and for this 
I hold them dear, though, for heir proper worth, 
I little value them." 

" I will make haste 
And see that all is well." 

" O, brother, stay ! 
Thy life is more to me than all the gems 



96 THE MORNING STAR. 

And glittering trinkets of the Vatican. 
But make a noise and he will fly." 

" And bear 
Our precious mother's gifts." 

" But what are they 
To life ? I have outgrown the use of beads, 
And bracelets are but fetters to my arms. 
Go not." 

" But for our honored mother's sake, 
And his who gave them to her, I esteem 
No sacrifice in their defence too great." 

" ' The Ufe is more than meat ' — and how much more 

Than things which do but symbolize a love 

So living that it can renew its types. 

At will, while life remains. But this extinct, 

What further value have those mocking gems ? 

Yet, if thou wilt, my love shall go with thee 

For thy defence." — 

" He is escaped, and lo ! 
Thy casket here lies broken. O, my heart, 
How had I rather parted with some drops 
Of thy red anger, than beheld this woe ! " 

" Alas ! the time is coming when the Thief 
Thou readst of will more sorrow give than this, 
But anger none. Ev'n now his stealthy foot 
Is on the stairway leading toward the place 
Where jewels more esteemed than these are kept. 
Perhaps their solid value is no more, 



THE MORNING STAR. 97 

In eyes that look beyond Earth's glittering shows, 

And realize the substance of its dreams. 

But oh ! my heart misgives me ! I have wrought 

No worthy deeds to prove my love sincere. 

In all things disappointed, nought remains 

But a poor broken casket, from which all 

The jewels have been stolen — all those gifts 

And ornaments with which I thought to make 

My spirit lovely in the eyes of Him 

I would have called the Bridegroom of my soul. 

But now I dare not utter the bold thought, 

Or give it lodgement in my empty brain : 

For when I would have beautified myself 

With acts becoming one to honor called, 

And sought his palace — not in arrogance. 

As though the virtue were at all my own. 

But with that ornament of greatest price. 

Humility, shedding its crowning charms 

O'er all the crown of heavenly gifts — amazed, 

I could not lift one jewel to my hair. 

But still I ceased not struggling, like the fond 

And foolish Bride of Christ, who, in her zeal 

To compass her own glory, thrust the sword 

Into her bleeding bosom, and pulled down 

The mountain crags on her ambitious crest. 

Thus, in the blindness of my vanity, 

I fought the battle with my own false heart 

And treacherous ambition to the end, 

And came forth vanquished, stripped of ev'n the grace 



98 THE MORNING STAR, 

Which genial Nature gave. Yet, in due time, 

Deep working mercy Hfted from the dust 

This shattered heart and brain, in which remained 

But emptiness and some small faculty, 

To hold new gifts of Goodness Infinite, 

Which asks but opportunity to give, — 

To pour abroad love's blissful radiance, 

Freely, to rejoicing Universe. 

This lesson, which my head knew long ago, 

I trust I may yet learn by heart : but ah ! 

So little has been lent me of that Faith, 

Whose vast capacities I once beheld 

In vision, but so failed to realize, 

And so much less have any worthy fruits 

Appeared from that received, I tremble now 

Lest when the Son of Man — and who is that. 

But our mortality ? — shall take away 

The little residue of Nature's dower, 

There shall be nothing left, — no inward germ 

Of heavenly virtues, from the Son of God 

Inherited, with which I may begin 

The life eternal. 

Oh ! could I but feel 
The comforting assurance, of more worth 
In such an hour than all ambition's toys, 
That when the lapsing waves of this wild life 
Shall leave my spirit on the star-paved beach 
Of the eternities, the Gracious One 
Will lift me up, and, like a new-born babe, 



THE MORNING STAR, 99 

Tenderly fold me in His loving arms, 

And kiss away my unreturning tears ! 

What then were all those pains which in my breast 

Compel the stifled moan ? Then I should know 

They were the travail-pangs of my soul's birth. 

But with this cold vacuity, this doubt, 

This yearning after love, which only falls 

In dew-drops on the desert of desire, 

How can my heart contend ? 

Have patience now, 
For the pent tides are flowing, and the eye 
Turns fondly to the mist-clad past, from which 
The clouds begin to lift. My aching lips 
Have long hushed thought's confusion, for no cause 
Could I perceive for the entanglements 
Which bound my feet when I essayed to scale 
Heaven's golden mount, but my rare wickedness 
In turning from my Shepherd's lead : for true 
Those pointings of his luminous finger seemed ; — 
Were doubtless true at first ; but when I shrank 
From duty's onward path through infirm trust 
In His omnipotence, inwardly leaning 
Upon my own frail arm, God also turned, 
In seeming wrath, knowing I was not ripe 
For His divine employ. Then, sorely grieved 
At my reverse of fortune — more concerned 
For my own gain than my Redeemer's cause, 
And the salvation of immortal souls — 
Under the inspiration of my fears, 
Rather than Duty and heart-strengthening Love, 



lOO THE MORNING STAR. 

I rallied, and made head against my foes, 
Led by some Jack o' lantern, that rose up 
To mock Truth's Guiding Star. The sequel all 
May learn who strive to enter Paradise 
By dint of human power — in whom death's fire 
Has done but half its work, purging the heart 
Of gross and flagrant sins, but leaving still 
The roots of discord in the soul's dark depths. 

Oh ! brother, it doth often seem to me 

That I have lived in vain, who hoped to live 

A noble life, and something for my kind 

Accomplish — something that should increase joy 

And beauty in the Earth ! It may be well : 

For some seem born merely to be — to drink 

The precious overflow of God's great love. 

Which else would go to waste. And who can tell 

But these are just as honorable deemed. 

As dear to Him, who counteth very love 

The topmost crown and blossom of our being. 

As those in whom it works to form a seed 

Of other loves, — save that in magnitude 

The one excels the other ? And perhaps 

In the fair Coming Time, in the broad fields 

Of Love's celestial Paradise, the flowers 

Plucked early and unfraited from the Earth, 

And grafted in that kindlier soil, may yield 

A seed of all their charms and lovingness 

To spring in other hearts, as angels spread 

Their beauteous race, and fill the worlds with bloom. 



THE MORNING STAR. 10 1 

Such visions sometimes flit across my mind, 

Like angels' wings, throwing a gleam of Heaven 

Into the darkness, and inspiring hope 

That some fruition may at length arise 

From my sore tutelage, when to my couch 

Retired, happy if from some quiet nook 

In Heaven, I may behold my Saviour's face, 

And watch at distance life's tumultuous play, 

Leaving to thee, perhaps, a double task, — 

Unless my spirit still with thine may work, 

And, one without, and one within the veil, 

Together labor still to understand 

The mysteries of human life, and shed 

Hope's cheering radiance o'er its desert paths, — 

Rewarded if some fainting pilgrim gain 

Fresh courage from these foot-prints in the sand. 

Faith's flickering lamp is shining brightly now, 
Giving a moment's rest, but well I know 
Darkness will come again, and Sorrow knock 
At my heart's door, and easy entrance win ; 
For mortal-bound immortal still is weak, — 
Frail as the wind-blown gossamer, which clings 
Fondly to its dead spire of sighing grass, — 
And from the great Untried instinctively 
Turns to this rude and melancholy world, 
Still dear with all its frailties. 

When I flung 
My maiden tresses 'neath that Juggernaut, 
Whose wheels are fattened with the blood and brains 



102 THE MORNING STAR. 

Of many of our country's noblest youths, 

And fathers not a few — Intemperate Haste, 

Our nation's scourge — how little did we dream 

Of this sad ending to Ambition's race. 

Then the thief entered at the vine-clad door, 

Through which he visits many a happy home, 

And lays its beauty waste ; and since that hour, 

Smiling at our late vigilance, and all 

The schemes of knit-browed Art, has roamed at will 

Throughout this haunted mansion, robbing me 

Of health, peace, comfort, joy and length of days. 

" Mysterious providence ! " it may be called. 

But more like my improvidence it seems. 

Still v/orthy of regret, however grace 

May break or mend my fall. Pardon me then 

If long and almost vain have been my struggles 

For the becoming shroud of resignation, — 

If still I cannot say that all is well, 

While yet unfinished lies my morning task. 

With mid-day's needful labors quite untouched, 

And but half-learned my evening hymn. 

O, Earth ! 
How beautiful thou art with all thy woe ! 
Even with the blush of shame upon thy cheek, 
Or war's dead hectic, thou art lovely still, — 
Lovely to sight, though bitter to the taste, 
And fairest when thy hand is most severe, 
For then we fear to lose thy favors quite. 
But I am well-nigh weary of thy frowns. 
And ready to accept thy last embrace, 



THE MORJSfING STAR. IO3 

So it be gently given. Why should Death, 
Now so familiar grown, appalling seem, 
To one full long a playmate with his shadov/, 
When thousands, still untaught by lingering pains 
To sigh for rest and shrink from its approach. 
Rush to his arms with songs upon their lips. 
And battle shouts rending the ghostly air ? 

Alas ! my country, who shall stay the tide 

Of our fast-ebbing life ? Alike in sin 

And in its punishment, one only way 

To rest and happiness for us remains — 

The lowly pathway of the River's bed ! 

Peace to thy troubled bosom ! Peace, O, Peace, 

For my impatient soul and weary frame ! 

And thou, unhappy Earth, and thou, O fair 

And long-afflicted Daughter of the Skies, 

May God, in tender mercy, give us Peace I " 

It was the latest sabbath of the year. 



That year of strife and darkness, when a world 
Anxiously watched the alternating scale 
In which a gallant nation's life was laid. 
As anxiously we watched a nearer strife, 
In which were mirrored Time's last agonies. 
Midsummer had brought hope : slowly her feet 
Seemed rising life's green hills, fair with her smiles ; 
But Autumn came, and with the falling year. 
Her steps turned downward, nevermore to climb 
The wearying heights of Earth. Then faithful Hope 



104 THE MORNING STAR. 

Spread out her wings, and flew across the vale, 

Sweepmg a way through Jordan's brightening mists, 

To where, in the dim azure, on the hills 

Of Paradise, a Shepherd with his flocks 

Seemed slowly this way tending. Sometimes clouds 

Obscured the vision, and again it broke 

With solace on the eye, as^ step by step, 

She neared the passes of the Silent Stream. 

Nature was tranquil ; on December's brow 

The storm had spent its wrath, and left the World 

Robed in a winding-sheet of innocence. 

Alike on fruitful field and barren heath . 

Oblivious grace had fallen, sternly kind, 

And Earth seemed once more cradled in God's arms. 

The pensive beams of the declining Sun, 

As if in fondness for the dying Year, 

And the sweet flower he would bear with him, bathed 

All Nature in a spring-like glow, and played 

Tenderly round the sofa where reposed. 

In seeming sleep our waiting Voyager, 

Who, like a pure, pale water-lily, kissed 

By sorrow's lapsing waves, began to fold 

Her fragrant petals for the night. Not yet 

Had perfect peace been given. Tremblingly 

She saw the opening mouth of life's dim cave. 

As when a miner leaves his dreary toils. 

To seek the light of day and home's sweet rest. 

But shrank with diffidence from Heaven's bright blaze. 

Fearing lest it reveal some lingering stain 



THE MORNING STAR. I05 

Upon her soul, displeasing to the eyes 

Of Him whose love she craved. Waking at length 

From sleepless sleep she called me to her side. 

And said with nature's sweet simplicity, 

" I had a pleasant time when you were out ; 

In my distress, with a more earnest faith, 

I called on God ; He heard, and answered me 

With the pure light of my Redeemer's face. 

Sweet were the moments of that interview. 

But oh ! it was so short ! " 

The Morning Star 
Of Heaven's eternal Day thus rose and shed 
Its radiance o'er her soul. Then folding up 
Her thoughts and smiles in calm, majestic peace, 
She rested till the evening watch, when lo ! 
The Somber Angel stretched his fiery hand 
And touched the silver cord ! the Golden Bowl 
Lay broken, — dust was dust, and spirit Home ! 

No form, no sound, no motion ! all alone ! 
No .voice, no glance, no smile answei's my own ! 
There was a vision — // would not abide ! 
There was a presence — now there is a void ! 
I knew a joy — an aching now I feel ! 
Where flowed a rupture is a woimd to heal / 
Once there was music in life's ocean roar y 
Now the waves i7ioan along a sighing shore I 
I saw two friends life's flowering stunmit scale j 
I see a stranger wandering down a vale 



I06 THE MORNING STAR. 

Alone ! Ah, well, I will go in and stir 
The ashes j — God, no doiLbt, was kind to her. 

Alone ? — no, not alone I — the Pleasant One, 

Who, ere Creation wakened, dwelt alone, 

Yet not alone, is zvith me ! Even He, 
Pi'inieval Sire, had pleasant company 
In his own Word and Thought. In his vast soul 
life's mighty Embryo moved, wherein the whole 
Of Nature, both the spirituous and firm. 
Lay folded like an imdeveloped germ, 
Rolling and ripening in the Eternal Breast, 

Whose bliss is action, and whose labor rest, 

Till the Omni fie Word, in radiant birth, 
Began to pour Creation' s glories forth, — 
Angel and starry hosts, like sparks that roll 

Erom pregnant Etnas beatific soul ! 

Alone ? O, no ! coinpassionate Saviour, Thou. 

Hast trod the path my soul is travelling now I 

Thou knowest each rise and fall, each thorn and stone ! 

The footsteps which I ponder are thine own ! 

They too are streaked with blood, wherewith 'tis meet 

That mine should nmigle, while my lips repeat, 

" Thy Will be done.'' Save in the paths of sin, 

I cannot go where thou hast never been : — 

Can find no rock not softened by thy tears. 

No cave so dark but there thy lamp appears : 

This aching heart bereft of answering love, 

This spirit moaning like a mateless dove, 



THE MORNING STAR. \of 

This weary eye and brain, whence light has fled, 
This heaving bosom and stone-pillowed head, 
Far more than I can name, thott knowest them all — 
The vinegar, the woi'7nwood and the gall ! — 
Rejected by the world thou earnest to save, 
No refuge from thy people but a grave, 
When timid f7Hends, like summer birds, were flown, 
Though man-forsaken, thou wert not alone ! 
But when thy Father s righteous judgments, hurled 
In dreary darkness der a wicked world, 
Veiled from thy sight His face— O, tender Heart ! 
That sword went through thee — from thy God to part ! 
Now thou canst pity us, whom sin beguiles 
So often fro7n our Father s blessed smiles, 
And death long weary years fro77i the77i divides, 
Whose goi72g taketh fro77i us all besides ! 
But grief is 7io i7iore grievous when thy lip 
Touches with ours i7i sacred fellowship j 
Nor sorrow sorrowful when thy war77i breath 
Uplifts the soul, and exiles woe and death I 
Fragrant with odors of celestial sp7'ing, 
I feel it blowi7ig o'er 77ie while I si77g. 
Till, bor7ie 07i angeVs wi7igs, J. 77iount the sky ! 
Where is thy sti7ig, O, Death ? where, Grave, thy victo7y ? 

Alone I What lights are these which roimd us burn ? 
Do Moses a7id Elijah too retur7i ? 

Whe7t the Good Shepherd visits those they love, 
Do his sai7tts li7tger i7i their fold above. 

Or come they also 07i cherubic wings, 



I08 THE MORNING STAR. 

Where Love immortal to her birthplace clings ? 
Perhaps they aid to bear the gift He brings j 
Perhaps their harvest in oiir thoughts they reap j 
And oft, I wee ft, they sooth us when we weep, 
And tender vigil o'er our slumbers keep : — 
Pond mother bending o'er her infant's rest ; 
Kind father blessiiig those he oft has blessed ; 
Sweet sister twining flowers of heavenly bloom 
Round brows that faithful beamed through joy and gloom ; 
Or brother, with seraphic tenderness 
Soothing dark anguish with love's soft caress j 
■ The child of niaiiy prayers eager to bring 
To broken age its grateful offering j 
Or soul espoused for life's congenial tie, 
And boimd through death by that which ca7tnot die, 
Peturned with balm fro7n love's celestial bowers. 
To shed delight on sorrow's darkest hours : — 
O, stars that ever with the shining Sun, 
Mingle your beams, and when a day is done, 
And He retires to let your light be see?i, 
Pour your soft smiles from the o' erbrooding sheen 
Of your eternal restingplace — by name 
I know you, gentle f?-iends ! The sacred flame 
Of yoiLr sublime benevolence, I feel, 
As often through life's solitudes ye steal 
Around 7ny heart, to fan the languid fire 
Of its devotion, and awake desire 
To loftier aims, and hopes height garlands weave, 
And whisper to my soul, " Believe, believe ! 
Though Ea7'th be dark, O bright is heavenly day ! 



THE MORNING STAR, 

Though blinding , grief ^ a moment ends its sway ! 

Though hard thine eai^thly couch, there is a Breast 

Where weary spirits may forever rest, 

Their himger all appeased, their warfare done, 

Woe ever ceased, joy ever but begim. 

To drink with us, in glittering coii,rts above. 

Immortal streams of beaitty, light and love I — 

No more of grief , no more of loneliness, 

But one vast chorus of unbounded bliss ! " 



109 



VII. 



BEHOLD yon beauteous Planet, O my friend ! 
Which seemed to melt into the gold of heaven, 
But perished not from love's attentive gaze. 
Ev'n when the Sun has risen we can feel 
Its placid beauty shining from the depths 
Of its ethereal home, as if to say, 
What more is death to the immortal soul, 
Than its unrobing from the shades of night ? 
What thinkest thou ? may loving hearts perceive 
The subtle radiance of kindred fires, 
That have put off their mortal covering ? " 

"Truly it seemeth not impossible." 

" Why, when the stilling hand of Death has closed 

The lively senses to our fond appeal, 

And the reluctant, solemn sepulture 

Has borne the precious ashes to their rest, 

Does the bisected heart sometimes defy 

The arrow-point of grief, still beating joy 

Through all the soul, as if the arteries 

Through which the purest of its pleasures flowed, 

Were still unsevered — still aflame with life, 

And sweet reciprocal love, outlasting death ? " 



THE MORNING STAR. Ill 

" It argueth continuance of the Dead 

In occupation of their native sphere, 

Or, that our sense of their late presence with us 

Is still so vivid that it doth impress 

Our spirits with a like regard of them. 

Truth has so many substances and shadows 

Of nice resemblance, 'tis most difficult 

To draw the line between what seems and is." 

" Hence she doth labor to procure for us 

A twofold witness, Consciousness and Sense, 

Grounding our intuitions in a form 

Of tangible effects, to indicate. 

Past doubt, the verity of that conceived, 

And Thought's ethereal features more define. 

To me the world contains no stranger thing 

Than that, if disembodied spirits live, 

They cannot make their presence known to us 

By some indubitable proofs, but mope 

And shadow round us, leaving us to guess, 

From the uncertain longings of the soul. 

And tedious arguments of no more force 

Than serves to keep the fluttering breath in Hope, 

At questions of most infinite concern. 

Which one clear glance would set at rest." 

" And then 
Another would be wanted, and another, 
Till we should have no patience with our life 
In this dull world, where our chief business is 



112 THE MORNING STAR. 

Until the shell be broken of that egg 

From which our struggling angel must be hatched. 

Perhaps it is enough for our best weal — 

For the development of moral nerve 

And fiber, which have ever flourished best 

In temperate climes — that we imbibe the warmth 

Of God's o'erbroodiag spirit, ignorant 

For a few days of the celestial walks 

Of being, and what fair wings flit around 

And chant their gladness in the open sky." 

'' The figure is well chosen, but methinks 

The shell about our souls is growing thin, — 

Tender almost to rottenness. A touch 

Will break it now which but a few years since 

Had harmless proved ; and haply, for this cause, 

'Tis more translucent now than formerly, — 

Though in all ages there have not been wanting 

Some of more delicate nerve, whose subtle organs 

Distinguished shadows of celestial forms 

Through life's attenuate veil. Why should the World 

Go ever muflled in the swaddling clothes 

Of infancy ? or wearing bonds of youth ? : 

Have the paternal Skies no waiting dower 

Of freedom and fresh knowledge for its manhood ? — 

Nought for i\Iidsummer, to the budding spring 

Denied ? — nothing for Autumn's thank-day feast, 

Or Winter's cheer reserved ?" 



THE MORNING STAR. II3 

" To these belong 
The fruits of the spring sowing, both of sin 
And virtue ; all the trees in Eden planted 
Yield their due increase ; but the Tree of Life — 
The witness of his immortality — 
Was hid from man when his incontinence 
Led him to grasp at things beyond his reach, — 
Seeking to be a god before his time. 
If from the innocent a Father's love 
Would keep excess of knowledge, wherein lies 
No little peril to the unripe soul, 
With how much care should a sin-blighted world, 
Lost to an inward conscience of the truth, 
Be guarded from the serpent's glozing tongue ? 
For it may prove that all who speak as gods 
Are not of God, but use the tongue of beasts, 
Or some like instrument of magic art, 
With purpose to delude the credulous, 
And lure the mind from an internal lead, 
And spiritual communings, to depend 
On outward signs which bring no certain proof 
Of truth, or spiritual identity." 

" Yet, granting the inherent poverty 

Of matter, whether animate or dead, 

Fitly to image truth so that no lie 

Can hide beneath it, still we must believe 

That God intends it for some honest use. 

Whether esteemed the base or shadow of being, 

Its value reaches to the highest heaven. 



114 THE MORNING STAR. 

Jehovah's self despised not its embrace, 

And promised further honors in the future, 

When to the World He gave His Well-Beloved ; 

And if aught evil have crept into it 

For our seduction, would it not seem wiser — 

More Christ-like — with a whip of righteousness, 

Faith and intelligence to drive it out. 

Than weakly to abandon our just title 

To all Truth's fair domain ? If Mother Eve 

Let in so bad a guest, that for a time 

The angels were ashamed to visit her, 

Unless they wore a veil, she had a daughter 

So credulous toward God that He disdained not 

To greet her with a lover's kiss, so fervid, 

That from that hour the sluggishness of matter, 

Opaque through sin, began to pass away. 

Giving some ground for hope that finally 

The correlated powers of Consciousness 

And Sense will grow so subtle and refined, 

That their joint operation will reveal 

The substance of our dim imaginings ; 

And being's inner sanctuary expose 

To reverent inspection, — laying bare 

Heaven's, long-kept secrets. To what purport else 

When on the cross Messiah's fiesh was parted 

Was the like symbol in the Temple rent 

From top to bottom ! — mark you, fi'om the top 

Unto the bottoJii ! which doth signify, 

That the obscurity shall be removed 

First from man's higher nature, but at length, 



THE MORNING STAR. II5 

Through the redeeming sympathy which joins 
Body and soul, his lower powers shall share 
The blessed vision of celestial life." 

" It would indeed appear that until then, 
The Great Reformer hath not perfected 
His enterprise. But for this consummation. 
Mankind must wait till Death has had his due 
For Heaven's infracted law. When Earth and Sea, 
Shot through with lightnings of His countenance. 
Give up their dead, as did the Sepulchre 
Its slumbering Lord, then shall these hidden powers 
Resume their native functions, opening wide 
Our doors to heavenly visitants." 

" Behold ! 
Out of the mist-clad Deep they rise ! The dead 
Are no more dead ! in forms of living light, 
Substantial, incorrupt, the ravished Grave 
They quit, and stand before the throne of God 
For judgment. All things perishable, false 
And vain shall now be given to the flames ; 
Truth, Wisdom, Righteousness to glory rise. 
Eternal in the Heavens ! Why should our sight 
Be ever fixed upon the blinding dust 
Of carnal images ? What portion, pray you, 
Of man's decaying body is reserved 
To seal his dubious identity. 
If in the living soul the key be wanting ? 
Of all the garments which the spirit weaves 



Il6 THE MORNING STAR. 

And yearly casts away, which must the Earth 
Surrender ere the sons of God can spread 
The feast of immortahty ? Why join 
Things most unUke to prove that Hteral 
Whose essence only is of solid worth ? 
Did Jesus from the grave his ashes take, 
When but a thimble-full remained, and call 
The winds, the sea, the flower, the rock to give 
Their stolen treasures back to Him, and then 
Compose the selfsame shadow of Himself 
Which on the Cross was broken ? Did not Love 
Paternal rather keep that golden type. 
To show by its uplifting that the grave 
Had lost its power to mar what fiUal trust 
In God makes incorruptible ? Such form 
Within the outer garments of his flesh 
Hath man, as the devouring worm and fire 
Of Nature's searching inquest cannot touch, 
While by a more celestial form sustained. 
In which the flame divine of God's own life, 
Abides. In such a form the angels dwell, 
And, as they need, lay hold of nature's powers 
To work God's will, as men attire themselves 
In woven vestments, whether new or old, 
As suits their company or toil — of life 
An adjunct, not a part. What if the Lord 
Of Earth and Heaven should to His Angels say, 
*' Prepare anon your mighty armament 
For the concluding act of our long war 
Against Idolatry and Unbelief, 



THE MORNING STAR. II/ 

The two grand foes that now on either hand 

Assault our kingdom in the Earth with din 

Of noisy and conflicting arguments ! 

Go therefore and prepare our final siege 

At once of Rome and Athens !"^what I say 

Should hinder the rejoicing hosts of Heaven, 

Who at His bidding sway this lower world 

And hold in check its stormy elements, 

From gathering round their pure celestial forms 

A luminous vestment of the finer threads 

In Nature's loom, to signal to mankind 

The coming storm, as when the weather- gods, 

With shining shield and spear, deploy their ranks 

In ominous glory all across the north 

By night, and sometimes in the zenith wave 

The crimson flag of elemental war ? 

'Tis said clear-eyed observers have already 

Caught glimpses of the vanguard hastening 

To break the ground, and fill the yawning trench, 

And plant the cannon. Doubtless Doubt should stand 

At Reason's side what time she doth inquire 

Of things so marvelous, and in his hand 

Hold fast Ithuriel's spear, lest some foul toad 

Inspire the restless mind with idle dreams, 

Which better fit it for adulterous league 

With Error than the sober walks of Truth. 

Yet he that would esteem himself a man, 

Should probe each honest question of his time. 

And having two eyes, keep them both alert. 

One in the search of truth and one of shadows, 

And, proving all things, hold fast what is good." 



Il8 THE MORNING STAR. 

" Or bide his time for such developments 

As will endow his faculties to act 

With the precision of intelligence. 

Danger runs hand in hand with Haste. When ripe, 

Truth falls of its own weight, and sinks at once 

Into the soil of conscience, bringing forth 

Fruit of its kind ; plucked green, it quickly rots 

And fails an issue. What if those who seem 

Angels of light — if they be more than shadows 

From fever-warmed imagination cast 

Upon the screen of some unfathomed power 

Of intellect — rather prove enemies 

Of human peace and happiness, whose light 

Is darkness, or the stolen robes of Truth 

In which, as in sheep's clothing, they essay 

Lawless approach to this unsheltered fold, 

And stealing in with serpent subtlety, 

And ready counterfeit of friendship's voice, 

Feed open-mouthed Credulity with lies 

Fatal to order, peace and innocence ? " 

" It were not strange if from the vast Unseen, 
Where the prolific broods of Life and Death 
Are gathered, spirits of all mind should rush 
Toward the back-opening doorway of the Earth, 
Or its breached wall, if haply they may gain 
The ear of student or companion fond, 
In which to pour the stream of burning knowledge 
Hard to retain so long. Nor doth the mind 
Of devil less than angel yearn to sow 



THE MORNING STAR, 1 19 

Its seed in kindred soil. The cormorant, 

As well as dove, delights to propagate 

Its carrion-loving race. Thus, unrestrained 

By conscience, disembodied fools or knaves 

May oft push honest folk aside, and seize 

The disappointed ear of those who sit 

In this half-Hghted auditorium. 

Or hold high carnival with kindred spirits. 

For this good reason, possibly, the sky-lights 

Were barred of old, and may again be closed 

Till better order is obtained — the more 

As those whose chaste attention would invite 

A better class of speakers blush at note 

Of any impropriety or lie, 

And leave the court-room as a place unfit 

For Christians ; so the devil's witnesses 

And lawyers have it their own way, — and will 

Till modest people dare to brave the fight. 

And brand the tongue of falsehood, whether clothed 

In flesh, or wind-blown clouds of noxious vapor, — 

Learning at length through sore experience 

How to distinguish between foe and friend, 

By inward rather than external signs, — 

And that the law of progress does not end 

With this primary school, this nursery 

Of character and wisdom, but holds good 

Even to the highest university, 

Where the archangels teach God's mysteries 

To the celestial savans and bright ranks 

Of knowledge-loving cherubim, and turn, 



120 THE MORNING STAR. 

Not seldom, to their reverend President 

For counsel and instruction. Till mankind, 

Emancipated by the Inward Light, 

Have learned the conjoint use of faith and reason, 

The world is ill equipped for its advancement 

Into the higher walks of liberty, 

Where Truth and Error, Light and Darkness still 

Debate the empire of the mind. I doubt not 

Even the van of Freedom's toiling host, 

As oft before, will turn from Canaan's shores, 

To wander in the wilderness of doubt 

And fruitless controversy, until Death 

Relieves the world of yet another race." 

" Methinks their flight is not without excuse ; 

For, first, they are not well assured that Moses 

Hath ordered this advance, but the reverse ; 

And, secondly, of all the prudent spies 

They have sent forward, ten in every twelve 

Have not obtained the vintage of En-gedi, 

But a mere milk and honey beverage. 

More fitted for the sick and sorrowing, 

Than for the diet of inquiring minds, — 

And have indeed seen giants, somewhat spectral 

Perhaps, but of a most pretentious bearing. 

And hostile to those claims by Christians held. 

To whose encounter they are loth to bring 

The tender wisdom of their little ones, 

Though for themselves they might not shun the assault. 

And surely, from the sum of evidence 



THE MORNING STAR. 121 

Thus far obtained, — if aught thereof be real — 

We must conclude that many in those regions 

Are such as were more wisely shunned than courted." 

" And for these reasons men will turn away 

From the apparent proof and demonstration 

Of immortahty, which unto some 

Are sweeter than the purple wealth of Eschol, 

And worth a journey o'er the Border-lands 

Of Time to gain, though but a single cluster, 

With toil and weariness, could be brought back, 

Suspended on a stick between men's shoulders ! 

But those whose eyes are always backward turned. 

To find a warrant for their Christ-bought freedom 

In the example of Earth's twilight ages, 

Will ever bow before a Golden Calf, 

And fly affrighted from each show of danger." 

" The votaries of this apocalypse 

Seem quite as likely to bestow their worship 

On a poor Golden Calf, as those who trust 

In proofs which have endured the rack and strain 

Of twenty centuries. In dignity. 

In calm intensity of moral power, 

In godlike purpose and consistency, 

In grand effect, how far do those excel 

These puny miracles of modern time ! 

Yet men will bow before a dancing stick, 

And with wide-throated confidence imbibe 

The silly drivel of a sorcerer, 



122 THE MORNING STAR. 

Who stand unmoved before the glorious life 
And solid wisdom of the Son of God." 

" Which, though irrational, should point the wise 
To one of nature's laws. A tallow candle 
At hand out-shines the distant Pleiades ! 
A summer novel will attract more readers, 
To spend the midnight oil upon its pages, 
Than the Old Romance of a dying World, 
Saved by the blood of her Celestial Lover ! — 
Observing which, some of the star- eyed muses 
Have lately turned their wits to novel writing. 
And thereby, through an art long time tabooed 
By such as praised the sacred parables. 
Rendered effective service to the cause 
Of piety and virtue. Better thus 
To cleanse all channels of intelligence 
And rational delight, than weakly yield 
To thieves the fairest province of Truth's realm." 

" But tell me now, are not these modern dreamers 
j\Iore given to their idols than the zealot. 
Who, in his darkened cloister, counts his beads. 
Or conjures with his relic, fancying 
The saints will hold to him by their attachment 
To cast-off clothes ? Nay, are not the sincere 
And the enlightened, who perhaps may find 
Some grains of truth among the sands of folly, 
And sometimes feel the heart-beat of the angels. 
Or through their own, or through another's pulses, 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 23 

In danger of transferring unto these, 
The homage and attention due to God ? 
Gravely I question whether wise or weak 
Would much advantage gain from laying bare 
Those secrets unto which an. inborn faith 
Has thus far been the key, sufficient found 
By all who trust in God, to nourish hope 
And strengthen virtue for more solid growth 
Than might arise from grounds of certainty. 
What if the clouds which brood above our heads, 
Reflecting or restraining heaven's pure light. 
Could be, by more than Fancy's eye, transformed 
To angel, human, or demoniac faces, 
Lustrous or dark, such as the dreaming boy 
Can see in every rack, — how could our thoughts 
Go through them up to God, or Love its way 
Find mid the radiant throng of witnesses 
That hover round the earth, — did they not veil 
Their heart-entangling beauty to protect 
Our innocent devotions — how, I say, 
Could Love the pathway to its Father find ?" 

'' Precisely as it does in Earth or Heaven, 
Once having learned the art of social praise. 
And what the Word of Faith long since declared 
Of God's true dwelling-place, — nor up, nor down, 
But in the loving heart and truthful lips. 
Yet I confess to no small peril here. 
For that prime root of woe. Idolatry, 
Doth so impinge upon the Tree of Life, 



124 THE MORNING STAR. 

That in man's heart their branches interlace, 

And not unfrequently a mongrel growth 

Of piety engender, very grievous 

To the Good Father. For this cause, perhaps, 

When man became infatuate for knowledge 

Of things beyond his years, God drew a veil 

Before the heavens, lest by an outward glory 

Rather than moral excellence, his heart 

Should be engaged. But when redeeming grace 

Had again planted in his soul the germs 

Of piety and wisdom, and good root 

Therefor obtained, it pleased the Viewless One 

To set before the hungry eyes of men 

An Image of His person, dim at first, 

Of purpose to make inward worth more winning, 

And separate the dross from faith's true gold ; 

But presently outrivaling the sun, 

In the pure splendors of that glorious Form, 

In which, to make his triumph over Sin 

And Death complete, the Son of God appeared 

Not once, but many times to those who loved him, 

And could the vision bear. Herein perchance 

He did not fail to set a safe example 

To such as could obey it, for his angels 

Did oft succeed in breaking through the mists 

Of physical impurity, which cloud 

Man's spiritual sight, and to the prophets — 

A most prolific household in those times — 

In diverse ways communicate their thou,i^hts, 

Which burned for utterance, so that, while one 



THE MORNING STAR . 12$ 

Was speaking through his medium, another 

Would suddenly break out, incompetent 

To hold the fiery beam which through him shot 

From Truth's warm-shining Sun. And so it came 

That frequently confusion took the place 

Of order, such a crowd of spirits yearned 

To add their voices to the swelling chorus 

Of immortality : and some for Christ, 

And some for Antichrist their voices raised. 

Causing the wise apostles to lay down 

Rules for their government, and for the trial 

Of those who spoke, holding the spirits subject 

Unto the prophets, and excluding those 

Who testified against the Truth. All this 

Under the eyes of those clear-sighted bishops, 

Which the Lord set to guard his infant fold, 

For many years transpired. Nor was it wisdom, 

Virtue, or heaven-imposed necessity. 

But rather human v/eakness, ever prone 

To change God's richest blessings to a curse, 

Which caused the groaning gates of Paradise 

To close once more over a darkening world, 

Thenceforth for dreary centuries, a prey 

And sporting-ground for devils, who, like wolves 

In sheep's attire, ravaged the bloody fold. 

And drove the frantic and disheveled Church, 

Again into the Wilderness, where God 

Her secret place prepared, and there has fed her, 

Well nigh her two and forty months, with bread 

Of faith, by unseen fingers scattered round 



126 THE MORNING STAR, 

Her melancholy camp. But she begins 
Once more to hunger for a change of diet 
And open vision of that Heavenly Country, 
Which is her fit inheritance. What think you ? 
Is it more Christ-like to submit to wrong, 
Or drive out evil with the rod of Truth ? " 

" Both that and this, as ordered in God's time. 
Perhaps where dangers compass every walk. 
He will best reach his goal who in tried paths 
Directs his steps, not emulous to gain 
Wealth by uncertain ventures, while enough 
Is given for each day's uses." 

" O, my friend ! 
Thou hast not parted with the half thy soul ! 
It may be well for those who feel no lack 
To rest in their contentment, until God 
Moves them to keen inquiry if the heavens 
Must needs be ever silent, silent, silent, 
To love's importunate appeal! The World 
Has not outgrown the need of restless hearts, 
Ready to do and dare in Love's sweet service ; 
Or curious explorers bent to find 
Each crevice in her golden hills. E'en Caution 
Is not at all times prudent. Those whom men 
Call mad are the World's saviours : martyr-like, 
They fling contempt upon the World's cold wisdom, 
And, fired by some great master passion, rush 
Through Hell and death to immortality. 
Cold Science doth not lack such votaries, 



THE MORNING STAR. 12^ 

Willing to forfeit life for but a taste 

Of Nilus' fountain, or one happy glance 

At the Earth's bare and frozen axis. Lo ! 

How rival nations squander wealth and tears 

To win a glacier, while, just above them. 

The i^reen and argent fields of Paradise 

Wave welcome from innumerable homes 

Of love and light — all vainly wave, to gain 

But an indifferent or scornful glance 

From those who deem life honorably spent 

In wresting from the Earth's reluctant bosom, 

Or close-mouthed skies, their secrets. While with lens 

And spectroscope man conjures with the stars, 

And makes continuous inroads upon heaven, 

Wooing the spirits of the vasty deep 

To own us for their kindred, shall no charm 

Of love, or irresistable wand of faith. 

From the mind's inner constellations draw 

Their heart-inspiring treasures ? While from shore 

To shore of Earth's long sundered continents 

We send our greeting on the lightning's wing, 

Bidding adieu to absence, time and space, 

Shall that ethereal ocean, which divides 

Life's widowed hemispheres, forevermore 

Our arts defy ? Shall Jordan's rivulet, 

Which from the prophet's fallen mantle fled. 

And from the Ark of God's redeeming love. 

Be never bridged with golden strands of thought. 

Though dark Niagara's chasm has been spanned ? 

O, shame ! that men should be ashamed to ask, 



128 THE MORNING STAR. 

With solemn earnestness, if there be found 

At last a medium, however humble, 

Whereby we can some tidings gain of those 

Who drew our heart-strings with them when they went 

Forth from our sighing tents, perhaps no farther 

Than Canaan from that Border Land, whereto, 

Their warfare done, a fifth of Israel's tribes 

Did gain consent their loving steps to turn ! 

Pray whither should our wandering lovers stray, 

To find a sweeter pasture than our thoughts 

Awhile afford, till they grow brown and juiceless, 

Because the heavens give down no freshening rain ? 

Should they go nibbling round other planets ? 

Or board some comet steaming o'er heaven's main, 

And search for joy in fair celestial islands ? 

When far from home, and this maternal Orb 

Whose eye still follows lovingly their flight. 

Weary with sight of strangers and strange lands, 

Will they not languish with sweet homesickness, 

And say unto their Father, " Father, dear, 

We long to see again our Mother's face. 

And our sweet sisters and fond brothers kiss. 

Tenderly — oh, so soft and tenderly 

Upon their hearts, that they shall think of us. 

And say, are not our heavenly loved ones near ? " 

Would not the Father to his oarsmen say, 

' Turn thitherward your swift heaven-cleaving wings, 

And take my darlings wheresoe'er they will ? ' " 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 29 

" And when returned with so much freight of learning, 
Methinks they should be able to augment 
Somewhat our meagre stores. But what new truths 
Has the world thus far gathered from these pale 
And crossing meteors, which sometimes shower 
Upon us from an unknown sphere ? We deem 
The stars are falling, but when morning comes, 
Nothing remains of all the fair display 
But wonderment and dust ! " ^^ 

" Yet thus may fall— 
Mostly no doubt in inconspicuous rain, 
With now and then a flash of angels' wings, — 
The pollen which the conjugal Heavens bestow 
To foster Earth's enlarging life, and give 
To her crude growths that rising excellence 
Which hints at contact with superior orbs. 
Conjecture well may weary with surmising 
Of all the possible benefits mankind 
May gather from these ghostly visitants. 
But if that one vast, hard, soul-buffeting question 
Of Immortality could by these means 
Be comfortably laid amid the tombs 
Of old forgotten problems, who would not 
Thank God, and enter on his proper work 
With two-fold energy, striving to lay 
The stones of his eternal habitation 
In pleasant places ?" 

*' Some might thus improve 
Their firm assurance, others take new lease 
Of self-indulgence, seeing life is long 



130 THE MORNING STAR. 

And may have many turns — each one, of course, 

As the fools always are, a vast improvement 

On the preceding ! But if so much good, 

And chiefly good, cr,n spring from these revealings — 

These late-discovered oil-founts of the sky — 

Why were they so long hidden from mankind ? 

Or, if not wholly to the past unknown, 

Why was their use of old inhibited ? 

Why should God frown such blessings into darkness ? 

" For the same reason that He veiled men's bodies 

When Liberty with Innocence was slain, — 

To guard them from temptation and excess, 

And bound their passions by the law of love. 

Their use for evil only was denied. 

While freely to the honest prophets granted 

Who in their schools had learned the needful art 

Of winnowing 'the golden grain of truth 

From its encumbering dust and chaff. The same 

Wise limitation at this day is binding. 

The sorcerer is but spiritual harlot 

Who prostitutes Heaven's gifts for lust or gain. 

And without sanctifying love disports 

With life's profoundest sanctities. In part 

To Nature due, in part to use, this power 

Is a more sensuous development 

Of that profound and wondrous womb of thought. 

Imagination, common to the race, 

But in the poet's mind preeminent — 

So all alive to nature's sympathies, 



THE MORNING STAR. 131 

And the complete analogies which form 

The base of spiritual knowledge, that when the truth 

Enters the mind there is at once conceived 

A figurative form appropriate 

To its peculiar features, form the germs 

Of Nature's infinite correspondencies. 

Cell-like, in memory stored. In common parlance, 

The instruments of thought's embodiment 

x\re arbitrary types by art invented — 

Symbols of earth or air where thought takes form 

For observation, that it may project 

And multiply itself in other minds. 

But poets add to language picture types. 

As artists do to books, making the germs 

Of fancy blossom out before the eye. 

Hence poets are twin-brothers of the prophets 

In whom imaginative faculty 

Projects its power into the nervous system. 

And so endows it that when spirit forms 

Are present, from the finer media 

Of nature — the magnetic aura which invests 

Our lower life, forming an atmosphere 

For commerce and reflection between brain 

And spirit — there is formed an auratype, 

Or apparition of the ghostly presence, 

Or such responsive motions as will signal 

Its operations to ear, eye, or touch. 

To what extent art may improve this rare 

And wondrous faculty — no more divine 



132 THE MORNING STAR. 

Than all God's gifts — and for our happiness, 

Or higher growth employ it, time must prove. 

Like all the kindred powers of soul and body, 

Immensely competent for good or ill, 

It should with love-bound continence be used — 

Discreetly, reverently in virtue's service. 

With due respect of Nature's just relations. 

He who transforms a ghost into a god. 

Or woes it but for idle dalliance. 

Or seeks to harness it before his cart, 

May find himself a ghost-bestridden fool, 

Spurred swiftly into error's thorny paths. 

But he that with a heart reposed on God, 

And mind illumined by His secret beam. 

Inquires what good, what truth, what joy of love, 

What comfort of assurance may be found 

In this or any door of being's wide 

And various temple, though he may not find 

All his desire, or meet at every turn 

Truth-telling guides, yet, if he do respect 

The laws of those dominions, and regard 

The imperfections of his counsellors. 

And the proprieties of time and place. 

He shall not be repelled as an intruder. 

But welcomed with a Father's gracious smile, 

And by good angels helped along the dark 

And stony paths of life, more cheerful made 

By these faint glimpses of a better world." 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 33 

Welcome ! welcome I sister dear^ 
From the dark and stormy sea ! 
From the waves of doubt and fear, 

To the Home of Libe7'ty ! 
Welcome to the House of Cheer, 
And oitr Happy Family ! 

Welcome to the peaceful Skies ! 

All thy weary tasks are done! 
Sister, lift thy drooping eyes, 

And behold oitr Chose7i One I 
Sorrow from. His presence flies, 

Like the clouds before the Sun! 

Doiibt and sadness all are flown ! 

Death has lost his mortal sting ! 
Love hath made us all his own 

By his patient suffering I 
High upon his golden throne. 

Love in every heart is King ! 

Bowing meekly to the rod, 

Man's deliverance to gain. 
Buried oft beneath the sod 

Of his sluggish heart and brain, 
Worthy Son and Lamb of God, 

Take thy Father's might and reign ! 



VIII. 



p 



RAY hast thou thus heard aught from thy beloved, 
Since o'er death's abrogated bourne she passed •? ' 



" Such is my very pleasant confidence." 

" By what sound tokens justified ? " 

" By proofs, 

Intrinsic and extrinsic, such as wrought 

Conviction in my walling mind." 

" O'erwilling, 

It may be, for the critical regard 

Which such pretensions merit." 

" Possibly ; 

And yet to ask for light, and straightway close 

Our eyes to its appeal, if novel found. 

Is little wiser than to credit things 

Incredible, because we wish them true." 

"Well, what good tidings did she bring — what truths 
Of new and wondrous import — from the realms 
Of pure celestial radiance ?" 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 35 

" Did Messias 
Teach men new truths, or vitalize the old ones ? — 
And how should babes excel the Lord's Anointed ? 
Were they to startle us with prodigies 
Beyond our power to image or conceive, 
What profit would they gather from their tale ? " 

"Well, what of cheer or comfort ? " 

" Words of love. 
That tasted of the virtues of my sister, 
And helped me to conceive her living presence. " 

"Aught of advice or warning ? " 

" Yes, these words, 
"' Do not fear death, my brother.' " 

" Did she speak 
Of her demise, and tell you in what manner 
Death handles us ? " 

" She said, ' I seemed to sleep 
A little while, then woke as from a dream — 
So strange it seemed, that all which caused me pain 
Was left.' " 

" Of the condition of her mind ? " 

" That she remembered all I said to her — 
Meaning the words of courage, which I spoke 
In the last hours, saying a sweet surprise 
Awaited her, to find how slight a change. 
And yet how great death brings — that what we call 
Death is but going up the river's bank, 



136 THE MORNING STAR. 

In whose cold waters we so long have waded : — 
Likewise, that she was happy and content." — 

Did she assent that she had seen her Saviour, 
Him, for whose love she said so touchingly 
In her soul's widowhood, that she was willing 
To go and agonize, even through death ? " 

" She did, and that He is the very Sun 

Of that Celestial World where she is dwelling. 

Whose beauty she could not describe." 

"Nor tell you 
Of its location ? " 

" It is both adjacent 
To this dull orb, and at removes therefrom, — 
Somewhat as it may please the immigrant 
To pitch his tent, near or remote from kindred." 

" 'Tis very likely some would rest as well 

At a good stone's-throw from their relatives — 

Quite out of hearing of the whir and murmur 

Of this ill-kept soul-factory, whose windows — 

Stained with the sullen mixtures of the shop. 

So they be scarcely more than half translucent — 

Perhaps the idle boys are knocking in, 

Rather than angels opening ; and whose workmen, 

Each on his wedding-robe or shroud engaged, 

Are all so busy with their toils or gossip, 

They seldom lift their eyes to see the angels. 

Who bend so pityingly and fondly o'er them. 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 3/ 

Or shall I rather name the Earth an iceberg, 
On which the heavenly flocks may sometimes light, 
But will full soon spread out their flashing pinions 
To find a warmer perch ? " 

" Nor may we blame them, 
Snice they could win no sign of recognition 
From our dull organs. Yet they are not moved 
By selfishness like men, but hover round, 
As doth a mother-bird about her nest, 
Eager to lodge a grain of heavenly truth 
In our blind, gaping souls, still fondly hoping 
That we shall finally behold their faces." 

" Do they at all times thus invest us ? " 

" No ;— 
Save that a subtle thread of consciousness 
Attends them in their travels, not unlike 
The gossamer, which prudent spiders leave 
Behind them in their flights, or telegraph. 
Which armies, those huge spiders, draw along, 
In their marauding march. But these with love 
Thus bridge their partial absence, and secure 
A swift return if dangers call, or grief 
Pull at their heart-strings. Rather, I might say. 
To speak profoundly, God who is that Sea 
Of spiritual fire, out of whom all things 
Have sprung, and in whom they subsist, when moved 
By our distress or want, as with a wave 
Of light, or instant pulse of gravity, 
Touches their hearts with sense of our desire. 



138 THE MORNING STAR. 

And speeds them on the sunbeams of His love 
To our relief." 

" Have they no dwelling-place, 
No mansion in their Father's ample House, 
Where kindred souls may twine congenial thoughts 
About some darling interest, unstarred 
By lesser loves ? " 

"I asked my fair informant 
If she had such a home to call her own ; 
And she replied, ' I have, a lovely one.' " 

" Did you inquire its nature ? " 

"Ah ! my friend. 
Such questions, born of curiosity 
Rather than true heart-hunger, touching love, 
Sometimes breed curious answers. If the wise 
Are speaking, they may say they cannot tell : 
But with a change of spirit in our minds. 
The way is opened for a change without ; 
And while one hesitates, being unwilling 
To give us disappointment or reproof, 
Another from the crowd of witnesses. 
Not all benign, around us, may breathe forth 
Some vain conceit, or touch the soft antennae 
With which the spirit feels its way to knowledge, 
As mischief-loving boys annoy the snail, 
Slow journeying with his house upon his back, 
To see him slink into his tortuous hall." 



THE MORNING STAR. 139 

"Wherein, if this be true, does Heaven excel 

This mocking world of sense, where Truth and Error 

Play foot-ball with our minds, till nothing seems 

Assured but doubt and ambigjuity ? 

O how our spirits yearn for some abode, 

Where nothing false or hurtful can invade ! — 

Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary 

Find rest ! But now these sad revealings come 

To rob us of that hope, and make us doubt 

If death than life be better ! Were this gospel 

Ordained of God, should it bring forth such fruits ? " 

Did that aforetime sent make peace or conflict 

Its opening act ? Dealt it with only men. 

Or with the principalities and powers 

Of populous Ether? What if the still haven 

To life's tumultuous sea be in a heart 

Centered on God, amid the bellowing storms 

Of elemental havoc and disaster ? 

An outward peace may come, compatible 

With inward harmony, time adequate 

Being allowed for life's adjoining spheres, 

To break the waves of conflict from below. 

Such is, at least, our grateful theory 

Of life, perhaps more puerile than fair : — 

For who, like God, still battles with the might 

Of fiercest Hell ? or who, like Adam, feels 

The sting of sin in his last grand-child's heart ? 

O'er ever-widening areas of light 

With Christ to reign, is bliss enough for hope. 



I40 THE MORNING STAR. 

Heaven walks unharmed through subterranean fires, 
And Hell through Eden's balmy fields unchanged." 

" What final fortune waits those acrid spirits 
Which not e'en death or sight of Heaven can purge 
Of their deep-seated bitterness and woe ? 
Some light on this grave question should be shed 
By these eye-witnesses of destiny." 

" I asked a noble angel, and he said : 

' They live forever.' Thereat being grieved. 

Because I wished them dead or well-converted, 

I spoke another, and he did confirm 

That dread, and straitly charge that I teach 

No other doctrine. Having still a doubt, — 

So hard it is to give away our mind, 

And judging that the spirit carries with it, 

Full long, the firm opinions held in Earth, — 

I asked my sister if she knew of any 

Deemed wise in Heaven who held another view ? 

She said she did not, but would ascertain 

If such there were, and give me information. 

So after many days, when from my thoughts 

The theme had passed, she came again and said : 

' It is impossible for you to know 

The final of the lost ones. We can give 

Our thoughts, our best impressions of the truth; 

But for the infinite and the eternal 

God only is sufficient.' Then I ceased. 

Feeling, in my own consciousness, that Truth 

Had sDoken." 



THE MORNING STAR. I4I 

" Does not the good Father speak 
Distinctly, and allay His children's doubts ? " 

" God speaks in life and light, leaving our organs 

To give embodiment unto His Word. 

But, varying in their action, or impressed 

With previous conceptions, these attribute 

Diversity of feature and expression 

To that which comes from God. What is essential 

To our integrity and happiness 

Is with all needful certainty defined ; 

And for the rest it harms not if we differ, 

So Charity forget not her sweet office. 

Both men and angels view the face of God, 

In radiance of moral truths disclosed. 

As loving students read the face of Nature, 

Feeding on themes adapted to their taste, 

And leaving somewhat for the morrow's study." 

"What meanest thou by angels ? Are there none 
Of higher rank than such as once were men ? " 

'' Three of the four to whom I put the question 

Gave negative repHes. The last, a spirit 

Of loftiest inspiration in his youth. 

Averred he had both seen and talked with such. 

" From these successes it doth not appear 
That all the books of Wisdom will be laid 
Open to our inspection by this key, 



142 THE MORNING STAR. 

Even if placed in wise and honest hands ; — 

Perhaps but little more than could be read 

By due attention to that subtle Beam 

Which is not barred by flesh, but which informs 

Alike both men and angels, making use 

Of all the vast and wondrous artistry 

Of Nature's intricate loom to shadow forth 

The heavenly principles and substances 

Which underlie the fabric of our visions. 

A hint perhaps to help us in our musings, 

A token of sweet sympathizing love, 

A word of cheer, may sometimes be vouchsafed. 

To break the weariness of death's long silence. 

But chiefly through the normal avenues 

Of thought and feeling, which should ever lie 

Wide open upward, our celestial friends. 

Should hold communion with us, satisfied 

With that which God enjoys, and thus escape 

The dangers and embarrassments which spring 

From contact with life's lower elements. 

Thus, like a pure transparent atmosphere 

Surrounding this beclouded world of sense. 

They may transmit the radiance of Heaven 

Unto our souls, less colored by their own 

Peculiar views, — thus in our joys rejoice. 

And, with divine benignity, allay 

Our sorrows, leaving all our members free 

To do their proper work, unawed by weight 

Of foreign power. This mortal still is weak, 

And ill can bear the welding fires which knit 

The golden links that bind the Earth to Heaven." 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 43 

" My friend, thou speakest with the subtlety 

Of one that has seen sorrow and has walked 

With Disappointment, arm in arm, and watched 

Her shadowy finger, as with solemn mien, 

She points to Wisdom's low but fruitful path, 

And to the hem of that celestial robe 

Whose Wearer, from the pressure of our wants 

And our infirmities, we cannot reach. 

Touch it and be content, and from thy soul 

The wasting flow, the mining wretchedness, 

May cease, and joy and thanks to Heaven ascend, 

A sweeter sacrifice than useless grief. 

The sum of that which I propound is this. 

That man, as God's true child, by Nature first 

And afterwards by grace, is made joint heir 

With Christ of being's two-fold, wedded realm ; 

To which inheritance he will arrive 

At his majority, when Heavenly Truth, 

Ascending and descending on the Earth 

By every round of progress fairly won, 

Has made him free indeed. " All things to me 

Are lawful," said the noble citizen 

Both of Jerusalem and Rome, To this 

High standard we are called — by Reason's light, 

And that diviner Beam which doth inform 

Reason and conscience, acting on the words . 

Spoken of God, and all the gathered mass 

Of man's experience, to prove all things, 

And hold fast the expedient, the good. 

Then from thought's radiant summits we may see 



144 THE MORNING STAR. 

Jerusalem descending as a bride 

From Heaven, adorned to meet her Lord ; then join 

The universal anthem of her saints, 

Rolling from land to land from sphere to sphere : — 

" Maker of all things and Thyself the bond 

Invisible between life's various ranks. 

We crown Thee Lord of being's boundless Realm ! 

From Earth's rich harvest-fields and Heaven's bright 

bowers, 
No longer severed by the ocean widths 
Of death, we lift accordant songs of praise. 
Triumphing in His might beneath whose feet 
Error and wrong lie crushed, w^hile nations rise 
Emancipated from the servile yoke 
Of ignorance and sin ! Hail radiant Sun 
Of Righteousness and Truth ! breaking at last 
In glory through the morning shades, to give 
Peace, light and freedom to a ransomed World ! 
Sole Heir of the eternities ! of God 
Only Begotten ! to Thy rightful sway 
All things at last shall bow in Earth and Heaven ! 
Death owns Thee King ! the Grave acknowledges 
Thy sovereignty and her vast plunder yields 
To swell the glory of Thy conquering train, 
As with archangels and the countless host 
Of Thy Celestial Empire Thou again 
Dost pay mankind divine respect — not now 
In sorrow and humility to plead 
With a rebellious and unthankful race, 
But as Bridegroom hastening to his Bride, 



THE MORNING STAR. I45 

Thou ridest through the purple gates of morn, 
In chariot of gold with sapphires crowned, 
Gathering night's jewels, like golden sheaf, 
Into thy bosom — Star of Morning Thou, 
And of the Day, Immortal Son of God ! " 

When Soul is sick and Heart is sad 

And spirits go a- sighing j 
When Hope is blind and Reason mad 

And Fear and DoilM are lying ; 
And Love a-swooniitg o'er the tomb 

Can neither sleep nor waken, 
O what can make the Cyprus bloom, 

Or heal the hearth forsaken ? 

Let Natitre pour her softest balms 

And tune her sweetest voices y 
Let Ocean chant his grandest psalms 

Till every isle rejoices j 
Let meadows bloom and orchards blush ; 

Let Earth deck all her daughters ; 
Let fountains leap and torrents rush 

With joy of living waters ; 

Let Day and Night in festive mood 
Pour oict their richest treasures, 
And sight and science fire the blood 

With their amazing measures j — 
And is the heart by these made whoky 

That hath no heart within it ? 



'4^ THE MORNING STAR. 

O, soulless Heai't ! O^ heartless Soul ! 
J^oy withers ere I win it ! 

Go forth and join the J7ianly strife 

Where passion graiidly blazes ! 
Let action swell the stream of life, 

And sweep its stagnant mazes I 
Rock out thy spirifs bitterness 

On life's tumultuous ocean, 
And quench its void and vain distress 

With power s sublime emotion ! 

Where wreath or crown with silvery light 

On every hill is shini7ig, 
And hopes attained new hopes ijicite, 

O, who should sit repinifig ? 
There's Joy in action, storm and haste, 

In gaining and in giving I 
And if one blossom is laid waste., 

There still are many living ! — 

Alas I alas I the soul is deep, — 

So 7iought but God is deeper ! 
When Peace a?id J^oy there fall asleep 

Ca?i conflict wake the sleeper ? 
The World may fret, or smile, or foam, — 

' Tis but a traveler s story ! — 
The heart which keeps its fire at home 

Alone finds rest and glory ! 



THE MORNING STAR. 1 4/ 

Then imvard, inward tm^?i for might I 

Below thy deepest sorrow 
There is a Fountain filled with lights 

Where sleeps a fair to-morrow ! 
Earth may not bid that morrow live, 

Or still thy bosom's yearning ; 
But He who built love's fire can give 

The fuel to its burning ! 

If on the wreck of mortal good 

Thy thoughts i7i darkness ponder ; 
If o'er death's awful solitude 

Thy fainting spirit wander ; 
Crushed by thy burden to the sod, 

Led like the lamb to slaughter, 
Still nearer press thy soul on God, 

For THERE is living water I 

Since Sin unlocked the door of Death, 

And plumed his somber pinion. 
Each flake that floats on Time's cold breath, 

Afust own his pale dominion j 
But since the Lord on Calvary 

Repulsed his fiercest dashes, 
Through mourning flows the oil of joy, 

And beauty springs from ashes ! 

O, Heart and Hope I then bide yoitr time ! 

There is a season waiting, 
When Life, returning to her pri^ne. 



148 THE MORNING STAR. 

Shall feel no more abating j 
When He who lets the tear -tides flow, 

Will bid joy s currents chase them, 
And all your jewels missed below, 
Above ye shall embrace them ! 

For Love He is the King of kings ! 

The Soul's delightful Lover ! 
And all who hide beneath His zaings, 

He will from grief recover I 
And he whose faith, mid drought and gloom, 

Still roots in truth and duty, 
Shall crown his brow with Edeiis bloom, 

And kiss the King of Beauty ! 

And as He bends His glory down, 

To smile away our sadness, 
The stars that glimmer in His crown 

Shall twinkle forth their gladness, 
And whisper from their bowers above, 

" Rejoice ! To Love is given 
The victory ! — for God is Love, 

And Love is Home and Heaven ! " 



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